ICMR’s study on Covid jabs-heart attack link to be out in 2 weeks: Report

The Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) study assessing a possible connection between the sudden rise in deaths due to cardiac arrest and Covid-19 vaccines should be out in the next two weeks, reported Moneycontrol citing Director-General of ICMR Rajiv Bahl.

According to the report, the researchers have come up with some preliminary findings and are awaiting a peer review before making the assessment public, adding that the research paper has been accepted by the Indian Journal of Medical Research (IJMR) and an independent evaluation of the paper is currently taking place.

The researchers have conducted four different studies to assess the link, the report said.

The first study focused on the reasons for the sudden deaths of young people.

The second study focused on assessing sudden heart attack deaths from various angles including vaccination, long Covid, and severity of the patient, said Bahl, as reported by Moneycontrol. The ICMR followed up for a year on those patients who were infected with the virus and admitted to hospitals. Reportedly, the details for this study were taken from the clinical registry of 40 hospitals.

The third study also focused on sudden deaths in which they identified a significant number of people who died suddenly due to heart attack or brain stroke, while the fourth study focused on people who suffered a myocardial infarction (heart attack) but did not die.

Earlier in March, union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya announced the ICMR’s study during News 18’s Rising India Summit. He acknowledged the rise in the number of deaths due to heart attacks after Covid-19 and said that a separate review of data generated from deaths due to heart attacks is also being done by researchers at AIIMS Delhi.