STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU/LEH: Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday recorded 715 fresh cases, taking the total number of infected persons to 3,08,726, while 10 deaths took the toll to 4,205, officials said.
Out of the fresh cases, 218 were from Jammu division and 497 from Kashmir division of the Union Territory, the officials said.
They said Srinagar district recorded the highest of 132 cases, followed by 65 in Kupwara district. While Baramulla district reported 55 cases, Budgam recorded 63, Pulwama 58, Anantnag 36, Bandipora 27, Ganderbal 25, Kulgam 31, Shopian 5, Jammu 22, Udhampur 13, Rajouri 49, Doda 31, Kathua 15, Samba 5, Kishtwar 19, Poonch 34, Ramban 16 and Reasi district 14.
India confirms first death following COVID-19 vaccination
New Delhi: A government panel studying COVID-19 vaccine side effects has confirmed the first death due to anaphylaxis following vaccination.
The causality assessment of 31 reported Serious Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) cases following COVID-19 vaccination was carried out by the panel.
According to a report by the National AEFI Committee, a 68-year-old man died due to anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction) after being vaccinated on March 8, 2021.
“It is the first death linked to COVID-19 vaccination due to anaphylaxis. It re-emphasises the need to wait for 30 minutes at the inoculation centre after receiving the jab. Most of the anaphylactic reactions occur during this period and prompt treatment prevents deaths, Dr NK Arora, chairperson, National AEFI committee, told PTI.
The Committee examined five such cases that took place on February 5, eight cases on March 9 and 18 cases on March 31.
As per data in the first week of April, the reporting rate is 2.7 deaths per million vaccine doses administered and 4.8 hospitalisations per million vaccine doses administered, the report stated.
The panel said mere reporting of deaths and hospitalisations as serious adverse events does not automatically imply that the events were caused due to vaccines.
Only properly conducted investigations and causality assessments can help in understanding if any causal relationship exists between the event and the vaccine, the report said, adding for causality assessments, priority has been given to death cases.
Of the 31 causally assessed cases, 18 were classified as having inconsistent causal association to vaccination (coincidental – not linked to vaccination), 7 were classified as indeterminate, 3 cases were found to be vaccine product related, 1 was anxiety related reaction and two cases were found to be unclassifiable, the government panel report said.
Vaccine product related reactions are expected reactions that can be attributed to vaccination based on current scientific evidence, it said.
Examples of such reactions are allergic reactions and anaphylaxis, etc. Indeterminate reactions are reactions which have occurred soon after vaccination but there is no definitive evidence in current literature or clinical trial data that this event could have been caused due to the vaccine, the report said, adding further observations, analysis and studies are required.
In the two other cases of anaphylaxis, two persons were given vaccines on January 19 and 16 and both of them were hospitalised and have since recovered.
Unclassifiable events are events which have been investigated but there is not enough evidence for assigning a diagnosis due to missing crucial information. When this relevant information becomes available, the case may be reconsidered for causality assessment.
Coincidental events are events that are reported following immunisation but for which a clear cause other than vaccination is found on investigation.
The panel said benefits of vaccination are overwhelmingly greater than the small risk of harm and as a measure of utmost precaution, all emerging signals of harm are being constantly tracked and reviewed periodically.
The number of active cases has dropped to 12,407 in the UT, while 2,92,114 patients have recovered so far, the officials said.
The death toll in the UT due to the pandemic rose to 4,205 after 10 COVID-19 patients died in the past 24 hours. Of these six were reported from Jammu Division and four from the Valley.
According to the daily Media Bulletin, out of 1,64,581 test results available, 162240 samples have been tested as negative till May 30, 2020.
Additionally, till date 1,65,225 travellers and persons in contact with suspected cases have been enlisted for surveillance which included 36,538 persons in home quarantine including facilities operated by government, 56 in Hospital Quarantine, 1,405 in hospital isolation and 43,514 under home surveillance. Besides, 83,684 persons have completed their surveillance period.
The officials said there were 21 confirmed cases of mucormycosis (black fungus) in the UT as one fresh case was reported since Monday evening.
Meanwhile, Ladakh’s COVID-19 caseload climbed to 19,611 with 50 fresh cases while the death toll increased to 198 as one more person succumbed to the disease during the past 24 hours, officials said.
Of the fresh cases, 36 were reported from Leh and 14 from Kargil, they said.
The officials said the number of active cases stands at 572 — 446 in Leh and 126 in Kargil. So far, 143 people have succumbed to COVID-19 in Leh and 55 in Kargil. As many as 3,652 samples were taken for testing in Ladakh the previous day, the officials said. A total of 135 coronavirus patients — 128 in Leh and seven in Kargil — were discharged the previous day after recovering from the infection. With this, the number of cured persons has increased to 18,841, which account for over 94 per cent of the total cases, they said.