COVID pandemic has brought the life to a standstill in all the nations of the world. Amidst which, covid vaccine appeared as a ray of hope.

Objective: To study the safety profile of the candidate vaccine and to assess the risk factors for development of side effects.

Materials and Methods: This is a hospital based prospective observational study in a tertiary care center in North India. All consecutive beneficiaries who got vaccinated at the vaccination site in the first phase were enrolled for the study. They were followed over a period of 3 months.

Results: This study included 1034 beneficiaries. The mean age group was 31.40 ± 11.24 years old. There were 612 females and 422 males. Adverse effects following immunization were seen in 784 (75.8%) participants with systemic effects in 748 (72.3%) and local adverse effects in 57.06% (590) of total participants. Pain at the injection site was the commonest local and fever was the commonest systemic side effect seen. Most of the systemic symptoms resolved in 1-2 days and few persisted for 5-7 days. Maximum side effects were observed in the age group of 21-30 years. The participants reporting side effects were significantly younger in age and were observed more frequently in females. Presence of co-morbidities was not associated with significantly higher incidence of adverse effects.

Conclusion: ChAdOx 1 nCov-19 corona virus vaccine (Recombinant) being used in mass campaign in our country has minor side effects and almost all usually resolve within a week. Presence of co-morbidities does not confer any significantly higher risk of developing adverse effects following immunization.

Keywords: AEFI, covid-19 vaccination, health care workers, risk factors.

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Dr Saru Thakur

Senior Resident, Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprosy, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Govt. Medical College, Nerchowk, Distt. Mandi (H.P.), India