Amid Covishield row, Covaxin memes flood Twitter

UK pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca recently acknowledged the side-effects of its Covishield jab. Following its admission, a huge row has erupted in India.

As per reports AstraZeneca has made the admission in court documents in connection with a case that alleges that the vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, caused death and serious injury in dozens of cases.


The Serum Institute of India produced COVID-19 vaccine named Covishield but not using mRNA platform. It has been prepared using the viral vector platform. In the vaccine, a chimpanzee adenovirus - ChAdOx1 - has been modified to enable it to carry the COVID-19 spike protein into the cells of humans. This cold virus is basically incapable of infecting the receiver, but can very well teach the immune system to prepare a mechanism against such viruses.

Now reports claimed that the vaccine has a rare side effect known as Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS).

Notably in 2023, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had warned about the TTS side effect while referring to AstraZeneca's COVID-19 ChAdOx-1 and the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Janssen COVID-19 Ad26.COV2-S vaccines.

"TTS is a serious and life-threatening adverse event. WHO has issued this interim emergency guidance to increase awareness about TTS in the context of COVID-19 vaccination and help healthcare providers in the assessment and management of potential TTS cases," the 2023 statement by WHO read.

However, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in March 2024 at 'ANI Dialogues - Navigating India's health sector' said that ICMR has done a detailed study which shows that COVID-19 vaccine is not responsible for heart attacks, and an individual's lifestyle and factors such as binge drinking could be among underlying causes.

Mandaviya said, "If someone has a stroke today, they think it is because of the Covid vaccine. ICMR has done a detailed study that the (Covid) vaccine is not responsible for heart attacks."


Meanwhile, many took to Twitter to express their views. Memes have flooded Twitter on Covaxin as well.

Here are some of the funniest memes on Covaxin.