After 2nd dose, AIIMS Director says Covid shot completely safe
Days after Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that no clear-cut or final decision has been taken on the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in the private market yet, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director Dr Randeep Guleria on Wednesday said that the jabs might be available for masses by this year’s end after the prime targeted people are covered and there is an equivalence of supply and demand in the market.
“Vaccine will be available in the open market only when prime targets — people to be vaccinated — are covered. And there has to be equivalence in supply and demand. Hopefully, there would be such a situation by year-end or before that. Then, there may be a likelihood of vaccine to come to the open market,” Dr Guleria said.
Sharing his experience of his past 28 days (a time duration for the second dose), Dr Guleria, said, “Today I took the second dose of Covaxin vaccine and I haven’t found any side effect from the first dose.
“I didn’t face any difficulty. I would urge people not to fear the vaccine and it is totally safe. People should come out and take the vaccine. This is essential if we want to come out of the pandemic.”
He highlighted that pandemic is still not over and India is in a good position but people should not have vaccine hesitancy and get inoculated.
“Right now our situation is fine and many might believe that in India pandemic case is less but I would say this is our window of opportunity to get the vaccine as the pandemic is still not over and the situation can change anytime. As we have seen in Brazil, Europe, South Africa and the United Kingdom lockdown has been imposed again as the cases spiked. We should maintain the present situation in the country as it is necessary,” the AIIMS Director added.
On Monday, the Union Health Minister said that one must appreciate that the vaccines are approved under Emergency Use Authorisations (EUA). “During the course of EUA, it is the responsibility of the Government to keep things totally under control. This is the reason vaccines are still not available in the open market,” he added.