Balram Bhargava, former director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has played down concerns of heart attacks and other side effects due to Covid -19 vaccines used in India.

Bhargava was actively involved in dealing with the pandemic and was part of the country’s Covid working group.

He said that there is no objective evidence to say that number of cardiac events have risen dramatically after Covid-19 vaccine.

“We all know that Indians are predisposed to younger heart attacks. Heart attack in Indian population is five to 10 years earlier than the western population and that is well established,” he said.

As Covid-19 vaccines emerged a lot of countries suspended the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab due to adverse health impact. The US never approved it. However Bhargava said that India doesnt need to follow the US and due regulatory process was followed before approval of the vaccine.

“India is not the colony of the United States. We do not have to copy what the United States is doing. We are a huge democracy which has an entity of its own. So a regulatory process, bridging trials, our own controller and all that was done due process was followed before the approval,” he said.

Bhargava did not directly respond to a question on whether India could have begun its vaccination programme earlier. He said if a large population had been vaccinated before the Delta wave, it would have been a completely different situation. He said India has taken “science driven” approach in response to the pandemic. “Whether it was approval of the vaccine or which vaccine, when, for what age group everything was science driven, and that is why we came up with flying Colors”.

Bhargava’s letter to research institutes urging them to expedite Covid vaccine trials and to aim for a August 15 Covaxin launch had come for much at that time.