The Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Saturday (4 September) that it is not in its interest or the interest of Health Sciences Authority (HSA) to hide adverse events arising from COVID-19 vaccinations.
“As a responsible healthcare regulatory authority, it is imperative to assess whether all reported (adverse events) or deaths are linked to vaccination since the vaccines are still only provisionally approved by HSA,” said the ministry.
It added, “That said, to date, there have not been any deaths found to be directly linked to vaccination. There have been deaths that were due to concurrent medical conditions unrelated to vaccination.”
MOH said this in response to a Facebook post by an individual named Iris Koh, who claimed that she knew people who had died after they took the vaccine.
She noted “someone from hardware zone” had come up with a set of statistics showing the current death rates in Singapore. She asked the authorities to “explain” the “sudden spike in death numbers”.
MOH said: “Whenever an adverse event arises after an individual is vaccinated, we carefully evaluate the circumstances and defer to expert opinion whether the adverse event is plausibly linked to vaccination or not.”
“If a death occurs, we will also defer to the coroner who adjudicates and determines what the cause of death is, with the benefit of post-mortem findings.”
As of end-July, a total of 9,403 reports of suspected adverse effects related to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines had been recorded in Singapore, HSA said last month.
These reports accounted for 0.12 percent of the more than 7.5 million doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines administered in Singapore between 30 December 2020 and 31 July 2021.
Of these figures, 389 were classified as serious adverse events.
As of Thursday (2 September), 80 percent of Singapore’s population has been fully vaccinated, while 83 percent has received at least one dose.
MOH had earlier said that the deaths of two elderly people – an 81-year-old man and a 72-year-old woman – were due to ischaemic heart disease. These senior citizens passed away after receiving a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Health Ministry explained in April that the 81-year-old man did not die due to COVID-19 vaccination complications, whereas in June it said that an autopsy report on the 72-year-old woman showed that there were no indications of an allergic reaction to the vaccine.
A 16-year-old boy also suffered a cardiac arrest six days after he took his first shot of the vaccine. MOH said then that he developed severe myocarditis that led to cardiac arrest.
It added that the boy trained with “very heavy weights that were above his body weight”.
“The myocarditis was likely a serious adverse event arising from the COVID-19 vaccine he received, which might have been aggravated by his strenuous lifting of weights and his high consumption of caffeine through energy drinks and supplements,” MOH said in August, adding that the teenager was “recovering steadily”.
Netizens react
Over on social media, netizens expressed that they don’t believe MOH’s statement that it didn’t hide any adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccination on the people of Singapore. Penning their thoughts in the Facebook page of Channel News Asia, online user said that they don’t trust MOH’s words as it has been flip-flopping its statements over the months.
One user wrote: “Best to take all statement with (not a pinch of but) a bucket of salt”.
Others questioned MOH if COVID-19 vaccines have “indirect” link to adverse reactions and deaths. They said that while the ministry explained that COVID-19 vaccines is “not directly linked” to deaths, but they asked if there is still possibility of indirect death caused by the vaccine.
Several others shared personal experience of either them or someone close to them who have suffered adverse reactions or have died after taking the vaccine.
