30-Year-Old Man Dies Just Hours After Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine

A 30-year-old man in India died Tuesday night just hours after he reportedly received a COVID-19 vaccine shot.

S.K. Subhani, who lived in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, received the jab at a health center during Tuesday’s mega vaccination drive in the Mustabad district. The victim's family said the man suffered from fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

They added Subhani did not have any symptoms until the evening, but his condition deteriorated after dinner, and he died before he could be taken to a hospital, The Times of India reported.

Subhani’s relatives blamed the side effects of the vaccine for the death. However, health officials said he most likely died of other complications. This could only be confirmed after the autopsy result was out.

“Over 32,000 persons were administered first and second doses of the vaccine under Gannavaram and Mustabad PHC limits. So far, no one died or suffered health complications after taking the jab. Subhani was in depression after his wife’s death and he was a chronic alcoholic," Mustabad health officer J. Sandhya said, according to The New Indian Express. “At present, we can’t confirm that vaccine failure led to Subhani’s death. We can come to a conclusion only after the post-mortem.”

The police registered a case under section 174 CrPC (suspicious death) following a complaint from the family.

The incident occurred the same day a 65-year-old man died in just 30 minutes of taking his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The man, identified as Jagannath Pal of the state of Uttar Pradesh, reportedly did not have any illness. He was with his wife at a hospital where he got his first dose of the vaccination. Doctors asked him to wait for at least half an hour before leaving the hospital.

About 30 minutes after taking the vaccine, Pal felt dizzy and his health deteriorated. Before doctors could attend to him, he died, Lokmat News reported.

The victim’s cousin told local media Pal was in excellent health. The police have launched an investigation and are awaiting an autopsy report to confirm if the death was linked to any complications with the vaccine.

In both cases, reports did not mention which vaccine was given to them. India’s vaccination program currently includes three vaccines -- AstraZeneca’s Covishield vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech Covaxin and Russia's Sputnik V. As of last month, out of the 556 million COVID-19 vaccines administered, over 483 million vaccines were Covishield vaccines.

India on Thursday witnessed a surge in daily coronavirus cases and deaths with 47,092 new COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours. This number was said to be the biggest single-day rise in two months. There were 509 deaths in the country in the last 24 hours.