All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. File
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
No direct link has been established between COVID-19 vaccination and reports of sudden deaths in young people, doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, said on Thursday (July 3, 2025). Countering Karnataka Chief Minister’s Siddaramaiah’s remark that sudden deaths could be linked to the COVID-19 vaccination, the doctors cited studies.
The press conference by the AIIMS Delhi doctors comes a day after the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that studies had conclusively established there was no direct link between COVID-19 vaccination and reports of sudden deaths.
R. Narang, Professor, Cardiology AIIMS Delhi, highlighted the importance of studying the cause of sudden deaths in young people. “We know from past studies that sudden [cardiac] arrests in young people versus those in older people have different causes. There are two major causes among sudden arrests in young people — the first is rhythm issues, which lead to irregular heartbeat; and the second is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), where the muscle thickens. This is common among young athletes,” Dr. Narang said.
In older people, the most common cause of sudden heart attacks is blood clots in the coronary arteries, with the flow of blood to the heart muscle blocked, Dr. Narang added.
“Why such sudden deaths are reported more now could have other causes that are not related to health. One possible reason is that after COVID-19, there has been more focus on health, and an increase in the use of social media channels, such as WhatsApp, where messages spread widely and become viral quickly,” he said in response to questions from the media.
“There is no conclusive evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine is causing sudden cardiac arrests. In fact, vaccines have proven to be more beneficial by reducing the severity of infections and associated complications,” Dr. Narang said.
The interim project report of an ongoing study titled ‘The burden of sudden death in young: A year’s snapshot of a single centre in India’, being conducted by AIIMS doctors and funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which studied 2,214 deaths, found that 180 (8.1%) were sudden deaths, of which 57.2% were cases of sudden deaths in the young (SDY).
Causes related to the cardiovascular system (CVS) causes constituted the most SDY (42.6%), followed by respiratory causes (21.3%). While the study is ongoing and will take a year to complete, the researchers had not found any link to COVID-19 vaccination, and all possible causes were being studied, Sudheer Arava, one of the professors conducting the study, said.
The AIIMS Delhi doctors also cited another ICMR study titled ‘Factors associated with unexplained sudden deaths among adults aged 18-45 years in India: A multicentric matched case-control study’, which finds that COVID-19 vaccination did not increase the risk of unexplained sudden death among young adults in India. “Past COVID-19 hospitalisation, family history of sudden death and certain lifestyle behaviours increased the likelihood of unexplained sudden death,” the ICMR study said.
Published – July 03, 2025 09:40 pm IST
