Indian Doctor Who Received Second Shot Of Covid Vaccine In March Dies

A 58-year-old Delhi-based surgeon died of Covid-19 despite receiving the second Covishield vaccine shot in early March.

The surgeon, Dr. Anil Kumar Rawat was put on a ventilator at Delhi's Saroj Hospital until he succumbed to the virus on Saturday morning. Before being aided with oxygen pumping in his body, he told a colleague, “I will come out of this. I have been vaccinated, I will come out.”

Dr P K Bhardwaj, the chief executive officer of Saroj Hospital, who has known Dr Rawat since 1994, told Indian Express, he had received the second dose of the Covishield vaccine in early March.

Dr. Rawat had been on a ventilator for two days and had contracted serious pneumonia, according to Dr. Akash Jain, a physician at the hospital who had known him for 16 years and was with him until Saturday morning. Dr Jain was overwhelmed by the loss of Dr Rawat, who he considered to be a little sibling.

He was a fighter. Before he was put on a ventilator, he said to me ‘I’ll come out of this. I have been vaccinated, I’ll come out’,” Inshorts reported.

The surgeon had been seeing patients in the OPD until around mid-April and would proceed with surgeries only on Covid-negative patients.

He was like my elder son. He passed MS surgery from Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, and started his career in my unit at RB Jain hospital in 1994. He remained with me till his last breath,” Dr Bhardwaj said.

Dr Rawat was initially isolating at home after testing positive for the virus, but as his condition worsened, he had to be transferred to a hospital. His oxygen levels had dipped. “We gave him whatever he needed,” Dr Bhardwaj said, adding that his team did all they could to save him, including considering a lung transplant. He said this was a huge loss to him and the hospital.

Despite being vaccinated, a large number of physicians and healthcare workers are becoming ill, but they are surviving after experiencing only minor symptoms. This is the first time a doctor who was completely vaccinated has died, Dr Bharadwaj said.

Given how unlikely it is for someone who has had administered all doses of vaccine against Covid-19 to have serious symptoms, the death has surprised the medical community. Dr Rawat is survived by his daughter and wife, who is a gynaecologist at Saroj Hospital.