Parents to sue AstraZeneca alleging their daughter died after taking Covishield

New Delhi: The parents of a woman who died allegedly after receiving Covishield are planning legal action against British farma company AstraZeneca which developed it, NDTV reported.

The decision comes after AstraZeneca told a British court that the vaccine could cause rare side effects leading to blood clots and low platelet count.

Venugopalan Govindan, whose 20-year-old daughter Karunya died in 2021, said the company’s admission came to ‘too late’ after ‘so many lives have been lost’.

The AstraZeneca’s vaccine named ‘ Covishield’, which was widely administered in India, was manufacture by the Serum Institute of India (SII).

Venugopalan Govindan in a post on social media said the Serum Institute should have stopped the vaccine supply following reports of deaths from blood clots that prompted 15 European countries to restrict its use, adding further he said he ‘will file fresh cases against any and all of those perpetrators’.

He alleged that the grieving parents, who are fighting for justice in various courts, do not getting a hearing.

"If sufficient remedies aren't obtained, for the sake of justice and to prevent recurrence of this atrocity that was perpetrated in the name of public health, we will file fresh cases against any and all of those perpetrators because of whose actions the deaths of our children ensued. Eight of the victims' families have connected and I am echoing the common sentiments of all of us," he was quoted as saying.

Questioning the government’s approval in the rollout of the vaccine, he added that "Serum Institute of India and Adar Poonawalla will have to answer for their sins. For the lives lost’.

Govindan and another petitioner Rachana Gangu, whose daughter Rithaika (18) died in 2021, approached the Supreme Court seeking to set up a medical board to probe the deaths of their daughters.

They also sought for a protocol for the early detection of the impact of vaccinations, besides compensation.

AstraZeneca, which is facing lawsuit in the UK over claims of the vaccine caused deaths and severe injuries, recently admitted that its vaccine can cause "in very rare cases, cause TTS".

TTS stands for Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome causes blood clots and a low blood platelet count in humans.