No link between Covid vaccines used in India and heart attack risk: Study

Indians can be reassured now, as a new observational study has shown that the two COVID-19 vaccines used in India – Covishield and Covaxin – does not increase the risk of heart attacks.

Driving home the point of the protective nature of these jabs, the study found no link between vaccines Covishield and Covaxin and an increase in the risk of heart attacks. The research, published recently in the journal PLOS One, determined the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on mortality following acute myocardial infarction (AMI) or heart attack.

Vaccines used in India are safe

The retrospective study used data from 1,578 people admitted to G B Pant hospital in Delhi between August 2021 and August 2022. As many as 1,086 (68.8 per cent) were vaccinated against COVID-19 while 492 (31.2 per cent) were unvaccinated. Among the vaccinated group, 1,047 (96 per cent) had received two doses of the vaccine while 39 (4 per cent) had received only a single dose.

"Our study found that vaccines used in India are safe. There was no association of vaccination in India with heart attack. In fact, the study found that there were less chances of death after heart attack in vaccinated individuals," Mohit Gupta, who led the study, from G B Pant Hospital, told PTI.

Cardiovascular effects

The adverse effects (AEs) of COVID-19 vaccines have mostly been mild, transient and self-limiting. However, concerns have been raised regarding the cardiovascular adverse effects of these vaccines. Any side effect can have catastrophic effects especially in large densely populated countries such as India, the authors noted.

In all the enrolled patients, data regarding the patient's vaccination status including details on type of vaccine, date of vaccination and adverse effects were obtained.

The analysis

The researchers found that the analysis did not show a specific clustering of AMI at any particular time post vaccination, suggesting there was no significant association between COVID-19 jabs and heart attacks.

On 30-day follow-up, all-cause mortality occurred in 201 (12.7 per cent) patients with adjusted odds of mortality being significantly lower in the vaccinated group. Similarly, at six months of follow-up, the vaccinated AMI group had lower odds of mortality as compared to the non-vaccinated group.

COVID-19 vaccines showed a decrease in all-cause mortality at 30 days and six months following AMI, according to the study. However, increasing age, diabetics and smokers had a higher risk of 30-day mortality, the researchers said.

"Findings of our study showed that the 30-day and six months all-cause mortality risk was significantly lower in the vaccinated subjects as compared to the unvaccinated population," the authors of the study said.

First study

This study is the first to be conducted among a larger population of AMI patients, which has shown COVID-19 vaccine to be not only safe but also have a protective effect in terms of reduction of all-cause mortality both on short term as well as at six months of follow-up, said the authors of the study.

They noted some limitations, saying that this was a single centre retrospective study, and the findings need to be validated in further larger studies from different ethnic groups.

(With no inputs from agencies)