Madhya Pradesh: Scared of ‘side-effects’, health worker said no to vaccine dry run

JABALPUR: “I was scared of the side-effects of the vaccine and was not informed about the dry run or mock drill of the vaccine,” said Vinita Willams, a woman health worker. She was made a beneficiary for the dry run of the Covid-19 vaccination, which was conducted in Jabalpur on Friday.

Willams is posted at Elgin Hospital of the city as a health worker. An SMS informing her to come to the district hospital between 9 am and 11 am was sent to her, along with some other participants in the dry run.

“After getting the message, I thought I have been summoned for deployment on Covid-19 duty at the hospital. I was not aware that any mock drill of vaccination is going on. After reaching the hospital, I was sanitized and then I saw injection and thought that the vaccine trial is being done on me. I have a small child, I got scared and refused to go ahead with it. I have read a lot of news regarding the side-effects of the vaccine and this was the foremost thought in my mind,” Williams said.

“As I have a small kid, I was not ready to take any risks. Once the trials are done successfully, I will go for vaccination with my entire family. And as far as refusing to participate in the mock-drill is concerned, I was not aware that it is a mock-drill. The message I got only asked me to come to the district hospital at a designated time,” she said.

Another health worker had also refused participate in the dry run. However, the said health worker did so as he was suffering from severe cold and flu.