Vaccine Coverage and Adverse Effect Evaluation Following First Dose of Covid-19 Vaccine Among Healthcare Workers in A Tertiary Care Hospital in Jammu

COVID-19 emerged as an epidemic in Wuhan city of china (animal food market). The first case of the COVID-19 pandemic in India was reported on January 30th, 2020. The COVID vaccine in India was launched on 16^th January, 2021. The first group to receive vaccine (Covishield) in the 1^st phase includes healthcare and frontline workers.

The aim of this study was to determine the distribution and types of adverse events reported following immunization of healthcare workers at ASCOMS AND HOSPITAL, in Jammu, from the day vaccination for 1^st dose of Covishield started until 1 week after the end of vaccination and To find relation of AEFI with prior Covid exposure, taking paracetamol prophylactically, age and co morbid status of vaccine beneficiary and to analyse the vaccine coverage in our hospital.

A questionnaire was prepared and data was collected during the Covishield vaccination of health workers at the ASCOMS AND HOSPITAL from random 200 health care workers who got vaccination and all those health care workers were more than or equal to 18 years of age and the data was compiled by using the appropriate statistical analysis.

The most prominent adverse events reported were injection-site pain, fatigue, fever, myalgia, headaches, dizziness, abdominal pain, nausea, sweating, vomiting, diarrhoea in decreasing order. Majority of adverse events observed were mild to moderate and usually resolved within a few days. Total vaccine coverage of 1^st dose in our hospital was 80%. The incidence of fever was reported less in the vaccine beneficiaries who had prior Covid exposure, had taken paracetamol prophylactically or had both diabetes and hypertension. In this paper, we also analysed that as the age increases the incidence of fever decreased by using chi square test.