Man dies after vax in Puri, autopsy report awaited

Bhubaneswar: A 57-year-old man from Puri district, who had taken the first dose of Covishield on Sunday afternoon, died later that night after reporting adverse event following immunization (AEFI). This has taken the number of such deaths to six in the state.
Director family welfare (DFW) Bijay Kumar Panigrahi said the autopsy report of the deceased is still awaited.“All the six deaths are being reviewed to find out if any of them had a correlation with the vaccine. All the six had co-morbid medical conditions,” he added.
The six AEFI deaths include two each from Puri and Nabarangpur and one each from Nuapada and Angul districts, all of whom had taken Covishield. While earlier also a 57-year-old man had died in Puri, two men aged 60 years and 66 years had died after vaccination in Nabarangpur. A 54-year-old woman had died in Angul and a 27-year-old in Nuapada, the health authorities said.
Officials said since the beginning of the vaccination drive on January 16, Odisha has reported 110 AFEI, 22 of which were termed serious and the remaining 88 mild to moderate. The symptoms included reeling of the head, dizziness, nausea, mild body temperature, among others.
As on Sunday evening, Odisha has exhausted more than 33 lakh doses of the two vaccines, 31.15 lakh doses of Covishield and 1.89 lakh doses of Covaxin. The state has received around 40 lakh doses of the vaccines. It is scheduled to get another 3,49,130 doses of Covishield on Tuesday.
With a daily vaccination target of more than two lakh people, the supply is too less, the health authorities said.
The state had asked for 15 lakh more doses. With such a short supply, the state can only plan for two to three days in advance. As per the guidelines, the plans were being made for 15 days earlier. “We are walking a tightrope because the supply is not enough to scale up the vaccination coverage further,” additional chief secretary (health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said.