The Union Health Ministry has trashed media reports claiming that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Central Drugs Standard Control (CDSCO) have admitted to the multiple side effects of the coronavirus vaccines while responding to an RTI query. The report stated that the officials have laid down a plethora of ramifications from all the COVID vaccines.
The ministry has called these reports as being ill-informed and stated they provided readers with erroneous information, as per its statement. The statement further mentioned that the ICMR response provided the links of websites of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The statement read: “In line with the policy of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of proactive disclosure aligned with global scientific evidence in the public domain, ICMR provided responses to questions of RTI related to the advantages and disadvantages of COVID-19 vaccines. The ICMR response simply provided links of reputed websites of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Goverment of India where compiled global evidence on various COVID-19 vaccines is available.”
It added that CDSCO stated in its reply that the list of COVID-19 vaccines approved by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) is available on the official CDSCO website. The CDSCO added no other information is available with them on the subject.
The ministry also explained that mild symptoms among those who get vaccinated against COVID-19 are commonplace but few individuals may experience severe side effects depending on pre-existing medical conditions. The mild symptoms mentioned by the ministry include injection site tenderness, pain, headache, fatigue, pyrexia, chills, arthralgia, myalgia, malaise, etc.
The ministry statement said that COVID-19 vaccination has helped in reducing the severity of infection by preventing hospitalisations and deaths while adding the benefits of being vaccinated outweigh any adverse effects.
The Health Ministry stated: “In India, NTAGI (National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation) has periodically reviewed the benefits and side effects of COVID-19 vaccines used in India and has endorsed the above findings.”
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