Get shot, don't take Covid for granted: NIMHANS Director
Blurb: A volunteer for phase 3 Covaxin trials, Srivastava has completed two-dose regimen and “is fine”
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 15
Ahead of the Covid-19 vaccination drive starting tomorrow, leading international neurologist and outgoing head of neurology at AIIMS, New Delhi, MV Padma Srivastava today called upon healthcare and frontline workers to get vaccinated in large numbers.
Director-designate at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, Srivastava was the first from AIIMS to volunteer for phase 3 Covaxin trials, which are about to be concluded.
“I have completed my two doses under phase 3 trials. It has been over 14 days since I received the second dose. I am fit and fine,” she told The Tribune, seeking to settle the controversy around the safety of the indigenous Covid vaccine, which is part of the national rollout plan.
Srivastava said everyone, particularly healthcare workers, “needed to have healthy respect for Covid and get protected with the two nationally approved choices”.
“Covid-19 continues to be unpredictable. There is no typecasting the disease. We cannot take it for granted. I will continue to have a very healthy respect for Covid-19 rather than saying I know everything about it. I hope everyone else will do the same and get vaccinated. Both vaccines approved in India are safe. No regulator will approve a product without taking safety into account. We must believe the system. I am an Indian and I believe the scientific rigour of my system,” Srivastava said.
She said she volunteered for Covaxin trials because the onus of inspiring public confidence in the indigenous vaccine was primarily on the scientific community.
“A big percentage of Covaxin trial participants are scientific people. The scientific community had to volunteer to give optimism to society about the safety of the vaccine. I am here before you having taken both my doses. I am safe and sound,” she said, adding none of the vaccines being used anywhere in the world had received general licensure yet.
All vaccines have only received emergency use authorisation and continue to be under further trials for additional data, she said.
