A 30-year-old sanitation worker died two hours after receiving a coronavirus vaccine in Gujarat’s Vadodara on Sunday, after which the authorities ordered a postmortem to determine the exact cause of his death, officials said.
While the family members of the deceased said they believed that the COVID-19 vaccine was the reason for his sudden death, officials said that he may have died from a heart attack because he had a history of heart failure since 2016 and was not taking medicines.
Jignesh Solanki was a sanitation worker with the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC). He was vaccinated in the morning on Sunday. However, hours later, he fainted at home and rushed to the SSG Hospital in the area, where he was pronounced dead by doctors, the officials said.
Solanki’s wife, Divya, said, “I had no idea that he was going to be vaccinated. We had not discussed it. After getting vaccinated, he returned home but fainted while playing with our daughter. We suspect that his sudden death was caused due to the vaccination.”
Dr Ranjan Aiyer, Medical Superintendent of SSG Hospital, said that Solanki was administered COVID-19 at a booth formed by the civic body, after which he was monitored for half an hour. There were no signs of adverse side effects during that time.
“He was declared brought dead at the SSG Hospital. We have learnt that Jignesh had suffered from chest pain and was admitted to a private hospital nearly one-and-a-half years back. It is possible that he died due to a heart attack as he had a history of heart disease. We will conduct his panel postmortem to ascertain the exact cause of death,” Aiyer said.
Aiyer said that if a patient does not report his medical history and is on medication, he should not be vaccinated in accordance with the general guidelines. “As far as Jignesh is concerned, he had stopped taking medicines despite having a history of heart disease. On the basis of his medical history, we shall be able to get a better picture,” he said.
VMC Health Officer Dr Devesh Patel said a post-mortem report is awaited, which will ascertain the exact cause of Solanki’s death. “The patient had a history of heart disease since 2016 His heart was weak, but he was not taking medicines, as his relatives told us,” he said.
Patel added that so far, more than 12,000 beneficiaries have been administered COVID-19 vaccine in Vadodara, but nobody has complained of any side effect.
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