The Indian government has confirmed that two people died after having received vaccine shots againts the coronavirus. It has, however, denied any link to the vaccine shot in one case, and is awaiting a post-mortem report in another. One death had been that of a 52-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh, whom the health ministry said died on Saturday from “cardiopulmonary disease”. Meanwhile, a post-mortem is being conducted on a 43-year-old man in Karnataka state who suffered a heart attack.

Al Jazeerah reports that India has increased efforts to grow trust in the coronavirus vaccines after it was found that almost one-third of those to receive the vaccine failed to turn up.

Over the first three days of vaccinations, beginning this past Saturday, 580 people reported adverse symptoms. According to Al Jazeera, India aims to inoculate 300 million people by July. The population of the country is 1.3 billion.

In its first three days of India’s vaccine drive, 381 305 vaccinations were administered, but, in the capital New Delhi, only 53 percent of the people expected, arrived to take the shots. Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, according to health officials, only 16 percent turned out. In one district in Haryana, only 29 out of 100 people expected showed up.

Al Jazeera reports that Suneela Garg, a member of the coronavirus task force for New Delhi, said, “These are initial days, and we understand people are waiting to see how the procedure pans out and how other vaccines fare.” She remained confident, however, that the number of people willing to be vaccinated against the coronavirus would increase as misinformation regarding the vaccines was dealt with.

Thus far, two vaccines have been approved by India: the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by an Indian company, and a vaccine developed in India by Bharath Biotech, although clinical trials for the Indian vaccine have yet to be completed.

At almost 10.5 million, India has the world’s second-largest number of coronavirus cases, with only the United States beset by more.

Umm Muhammed Umar