NBMCH panel to check vaccine side-effect cases: set up a 10-member multidisciplinary expert committee to examine cases of AEFI

SNS,  SiLIGURI. 2 AUGUST 21 : The North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH) has set up a 10-member multidisciplinary expert committee to examine cases of "adverse events" following immunisation (AEFI).

The committee will monitor and investigate if such cases are reported in Darjeeling district among people who have had their Covid-19 vaccine shots, along with other vaccines.

Apart from Covid -19 vaccination, other vaccines for diseases like Japanese Encephalitis, yellow fever, tetanus-diphtheria are also administered at the NBMCH.

Some recipients of Covid-19 vaccines have reported AEFI and at least two persons died in north Bengal after getting the shots in March. The health department, however, did not link the deaths to the Covid-19 vaccination. It attributed "natural causes of pre-existing cardiac conditions and coincidental to vaccination in nature" for the deaths.

The committee will mainly examine AEFI or side effects related to Covid-19 vaccines.

"It is important to examine the patients thoroughly if they complain of AEFI. A multi-disciplinary committee has been constituted to assess such cases based on the reports and their causes. They will monitor those cases," said NBMCH principal Prof Indrajit Saha.

According to an order issues in this regard, the committee will comprise the head of the department of general medicine Dr Dipanjan Bandopadhyay, head of the psychiatry department Dr Nirmal Kumar Bera, head of the cardiology department Dr Soura Mukhopadhyay, Prof Spandan Bhaduri of general medicine& cardiology, head of the neurology department Dr Durga Prasad Chakraborty, Dr Biplab Mondal of the general medicine & endocrinology department, Dr 'Mayan Mazumdar of the anesthesiology department, head of the department of pediatric medicine Dr Madhumita Nandy, Dr Sandip Sengupta of the department of obstetrics & gynecology and head of the community medicine department Dr Sharmistha Bhattacharjee.