A shocking incident about a covaxin trial participant came to light. 42-year-old volunteer who received the ‘Covaxin’ vaccine shot developed by Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad, has died. The incident took place in Bhopal. Following the ill-fated incident, doubts rose abound over whether the government will allow the emergency use of Covaxin.
Covaxin conducted human trials on December 12 at the People’s Medical College and Hospital in Bhopal. As part of this, a tribal laborer named Deepak Marwai (volunteer) was also vaccinated.
He died on December 21. However, Bharat Biotech refuted the death of the participant due to Covaxin. Dr Ashok Sharma, director of the Madhya Pradesh Legal Institute, said that Deepak was suspected to have died due to poisoning and the cause needs to be ascertained.
But his family members claimed that Deepak had health problems after taking Covaxin and returning home. It is learnt that he had been suffering from chest pain. On December 21st as his health condition deteriorated he was rushed to a hospital, however Ashok died midway.
Bharat Biotech responded to Deepak’s death though a statement, which said that the vaccine was given with his consent as part of the phase-3 trials. For seven days after taking the vaccine, he showed no symptoms or side effects and was completely healthy. Preliminary review revealed that their vaccine was not the cause of death after 9 days. Whether an actual vaccine or placebo was given is not clear.