A 42-year-old healthcare worker in Telangana died on Wednesday, a day after he received a shot of the coronavirus vaccine, reported PTI. While the autopsy is yet to be conducted, the state health authorities said the death was not related to the vaccination process.

Telangana’s Director of Public Health and Welfare said the worker was vaccinated on January 19 at Kuntala Primary Healthcare Centre in Nirmal district. A day later, he developed chest pain and was brought dead to a district hospital at around 5.30 am.

“Preliminary findings suggest that the dead seems to be unrelated to the vaccination,” a statement issued by the state health department stated. “As per the guidelines, postmortem will be conducted by a team of doctors.”

The district adverse events after immunisation, or AEFI committee, was examining the matter, and it would submit its report to the state AEFI committee, the statement said. The state-level would then, in turn, furnish a report to the central panel.

This is the third such case where a person died shortly after being administered the vaccine, since the inoculation drive began in the country on January 16. In both instances, the government had ruled out any link between the deaths and the vaccine.

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A 46-year-old health worker in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad district died on Sunday evening, a day after being administered a coronavirus vaccine. Mahipal Singh, who worked as a ward boy at the district hospital, had complained of breathlessness and tightness in the chest. The ministry said that he died because of cardiopulmonary disease.

The second person who died was a resident of Bellary in Karnataka. The 43-year-old was administered the vaccine on January 16 and died on Monday. “The cause of death is anterior wall infarction with cardiopulmonary failure,” the health ministry said.

The Karnataka government said that the man, Nagaraju, came to work on Monday morning and complained of chest pain. He collapsed and was admitted to a hospital but could not be saved. Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar said that Nagaraju did not suffer a heart attack because of the inoculation. “The man had a massive heart attack,” Sudhakar said. “He had a history of diabetes and comorbidity.”

India, which has reported the highest number of coronavirus infections after the United States, plans to vaccinate around 30 crore people with two doses in the first six to eight months of the year. The recipients include 3 crore doctors, nurses and other front-line workers, to be followed by people who are either over 50 or have illnesses that make them vulnerable to Covid-19. The government has till 6 pm on Tuesday vaccinated 6,31,417 health workers.

Beneficiaries, however, will not be able to choose between the Oxford University-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine, produced by the Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin, a government-backed, indigenous one from Bharat Biotech, whose efficacy is not known.

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