New Delhi: An ICMR study has found that Covid vaccination did not increase the risk of unexplained sudden deaths among young adults in India, Union Health Minister J P Nadda told Lok Sabha on Friday.
Past Covid hospitalization, family history of sudden death and certain lifestyle behaviours increased the likelihood of unexplained sudden deaths.
Responding to a question, Nadda said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has informed that it and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) explored two approaches to investigate the causes of sudden death.
The first approach was a retrospective case-control study to determine the risk factors associated with sudden death and the second approach of the study was to prospectively investigate sudden deaths in young adults using a virtual autopsy approach.
The ICMR-National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE) conducted a study titled “Factors associated with unexplained sudden deaths among adults aged 18-45 years in India – A multicentric matched case-control study” at 47 tertiary care hospitals located across 19 states and Union territories during May-August 2023.
Cases were apparently healthy individuals without any known co-morbidity, who suddenly (less than 24 hours of hospitalization or seen apparently healthy 24 hours before death) died of unexplained causes during October 1, 2021-March 31, 2023, Nadda stated.
Four controls were included per case matched for age, gender and neighbourhood.
Information was collected regarding data on COVID-19 vaccination/infection, post-Covid conditions, family history of sudden death, smoking, recreational drug use, alcohol frequency, binge drinking and vigorous-intensity physical activity two days before death among the cases or interviewed controls, he said.
A total of 729 sudden death cases and 2916 controls were included in the analysis.
It was observed that receiving two doses of Covid vaccine significantly reduced the odds of unexplained sudden death, Nadda stated.
Past COVID-19 hospitalization, family history of sudden death, binge drinking 48 hours before death/interview, use of recreational drug/substance and performing vigorous-intensity physical activity 48 hours before death/interview increased the odds of sudden death.
“Hence, the study observed that COVID-19 vaccination did not increase the risk of unexplained sudden death among young adults in India. Past COVID-19 hospitalization, family history of sudden death and certain lifestyle behaviours increased the likelihood of unexplained sudden death,” he said.
The second study, titled “Establishing the cause in sudden unexplained deaths in young” conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi with funding and in collaboration with ICMR, is a prospective work aimed at determining the common causes of sudden deaths in young adults.
Early analysis of data from the study indicates that heart attacks, or myocardial infarction (MI), continue to be the leading cause of sudden death in this age group. Importantly, no major changes in the pattern of causes have been observed when compared with previous years before the Covid pandemic.
Together, these two studies offer a more comprehensive understanding of sudden unexplained deaths in young adults in India, Nadda said.
It has also been revealed that Covid vaccination does not appear to increase the risk, whereas, the role of underlying health issues, genetic predisposition and risky lifestyle choices does play a role in unexplained sudden deaths, he said.
