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Reports about side effects from coronavirus vaccines are few, says health ministry

Immunology commissions have been set up in all regions

MOSCOW, July 26./TASS/. Few people have reported an adverse response to the vaccination against coronavirus, Russia’s Deputy Health Minister Sergey Glagolev reported on Monday.

"Although immunization is now on a mass-scale, we have received few reports about reactions to the COVID-19 vaccines. Immunology commissions have been set up in all regions, they are aimed at investigating serious complications from the coronavirus vaccines," the deputy health minister told a seminar on monitoring the safety of vaccination against coronavirus.

In some cases, the Health Ministry faces the situation when reports about adverse responses come from the media, while the ministry is the second or third to learn about them. "At the time we are contacted by the media, we have no data on the results of examinations and cannot come up with a well-founded position as to whether this is related to the vaccination or not," Glagolev went on to say.

"Such cases are not only inadmissible from the legislative point of view, but they also discredit our work and the work of our colleagues in applied medicine to achieve herd immunity to coronavirus. This situation must be remedied," he stressed.

"I would like to draw your attention to another widespread but permissible practice — sanctions against the medics reporting on side effects from immunization. Quite the opposite, the medics who actively carry out this work must be encouraged," the health official summed up.

According to the federal anti-coronavirus crisis center, Russia has so far recorded 6,149,780 coronavirus cases, 5,506,834 recoveries and 154,601 deaths. The Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.