COVID vaccination has huge merits; even WHO says so: Supreme Court

Vaccination against COVID-19 has huge merits and the same has also been attested to by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Supreme Court observed on Friday (Dr. Ajay Kumar Gupta v. Union of India)..A Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna said that the top court will not make observations or pass orders which could send a signal casting doubt on COVID vaccination and its efficacy."There are huge merits of vaccination. Even WHO says so. We don't want to send a signal casting doubt on vaccinations," the Court remarked..The Court was hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by Dr. Ajay Kumar Gupta seeking directions to follow up through an independent agency, people who are vaccinated, and record and advertise instances of death or adverse events occurring within 30 days of administration of COVID vaccine."ASHA workers etc can follow up with individuals who got vaccinated and this is active follow up and there is also passive follow up. At the time of filing petitions there were 900 such deaths after vaccination across the country," Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, who was representing the petitioner, submitted."After a person has taken Covid vaccine, every death cannot be contributed to the vaccine. There might be no correlation between such deaths and the vaccine," said Justice Chandrachud..Gonsalves submitted that there were guidelines in place in 2015 for dealing with adverse reaction after immunization. "It is not being followed. That is why there is unbelievable number of deaths," he said."I don't think you can say unbelievable etc," the Court said while highlighting how even WHO has attested to the fact that vaccination can save lives. Gonsalves then said that he does not want to get into the debate of whether vaccinations are beneficial or not."I should be more sober while arguing. I don't want to get into whether vaccinations are good or not," he stated.Gonsalves maintained that he was on the aspect of following up vaccinated persons and pointed out that even WHO's guidelines call for such follow up.India, however, revised its guidelines and did away with active follow up and is now implementing only passive follow up, he submitted.The Court said that it cannot interfere in policy matters."We cannot make a policy on this. This is a matter of highest national importance. We cannot afford the price of laxity by not vaccinating people, this is the biggest pandemic that we saw in our lifetime," he said..The Bench also pointed out how the developed word including countries like United States of America actively vaccinated its population. "All (of them) have active surveillance and India has jettisoned active surveillance," Gonsalves responded..The judges then discussed among themselves before directing that a copy of the plea be served on the office of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta."There is something in my mind, we will take a call," said Justice Chandrachud. The case will be heard again after two weeks.