The Government on Tuesday termed as "ill-informed and erroneous" media reports claiming admission of “multiple side-effects of Covid-19 vaccines” by ICMR and CDSCO officials.
The Ministry said the proactive disclosure aligned with global scientific evidence in the public domain and responses to questions in the RTI related to advantages and disadvantages of Covid-19 vaccines.
"The ICMR response simply provided links of reputed websites of World Health Organization (WHO), Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India where compiled global evidence on various Covid-19 vaccines is available," the Ministry said.
As is the case with all other vaccines, those who get vaccinated with different Covid-19 vaccines may experience mild symptoms like injection site tenderness, pain, headache, fatigue, myalgia, malaise, pyrexia, chills, arthralgia etc, the Ministry said adding that rarely, few individuals may experience severe adverse events depending upon certain pre-disposing conditions, it added.
Global research studies have shown that Covid-19 vaccination has helped in reducing severity of disease by preventing hospitalisations and deaths due to Covid-19 and benefits of the vaccines overwhelmingly outweigh any adverse effects.
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, the Ministry said.
In addition, CDSCO stated as part of the RTI reply that the list of Covid vaccines approved by the national Drugs Controller General is available on the website (cdsco.gov.in) while ICMR has not commented on any of the documents, links of which have been shared as part of the RTI response.