Tamil actor-comedian Vivekh’s death, in April, is not related to the Covid-19 vaccination he was administered two days prior to his death, a report by the Centre’s Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) Committee stated.
Vivekh (59) died on April 17 in Chennai two days after he received the Covid-19 vaccination in the presence of Tamil Nadu Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, Dr J Radhakrishnan, at Omandurar Medical College, a government hospital in Chennai.
Vivekh, who had addressed the media after taking the vaccination, said, “There are hesitations and several rumours surrounding the Covid vaccine among the general public. To put an end to all this, I wanted to take the vaccine at a government hospital. One may ask- if I take the vaccine, will I be immune to Covid-19? This is not the way it works. Even after getting the vaccine, we need to be careful.”
While both the health and hospital authorities said that Vivekh’s death was due to a cardiac event and was not related to the vaccination he took, a few people, including actor Mansoor Ali Khan, blamed the vaccine for the comedian’s demise. Vivekh’s death, which came as a shock, caused a scare among the public regarding the vaccinations that the government was offering.
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However, the AEFI report by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare’s Immunization Division, dated September 14, has ruled out the vaccine as the cause of Vivekh’s death. Instead, the report diagnosed the cause of death as “acute myocardial infarction with cardiogenic shock with ventricular fibrillation in a known case of hypertension”. Further, Vivekh’s death has been classified as C category that stands for “coincidental – underlying or emerging condition(s), or conditions caused by exposure to something other than vaccine”. The report added that “coincidental events are those events that are reported following immunization but for which a clear cause other than vaccination is found on investigation”.
It is to be noted that according to the health bulletin issued by SIMS Hospital, Vadapalani, Vivekh was brought in unconscious by family members and had suffered an acute coronary syndrome with cardiogenic shock. He had undergone an Emergency Coronary Angiogram followed by an Angioplasty and was later was shifted to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and placed on extracorporeal cardiac support. However, he subsequently died due to a cardiac arrest. It was the actor’s first heart attack, according to Dr Raju Sivasamy, Vice President of SIMS.