KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — Klang MP Charles Santiago today suggested that the government form an independent panel to vet post-mortem reports of deaths involving children who received the Covid-19 vaccine.
Charles interrupted Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali during his winding up speech to propose the idea.
This, he said, was necessary after the reported death of 13-year-old student Revnesh Kumar, three weeks after he received the vaccine.
“My question is... can Revnesh Kumar’s post-mortem report be given to an independent panel to get a neutral assessment? The government stated in their post-mortem report that the vaccine did not cause the death of this young boy.
“However, because many don’t trust this deduction... therefore I ask the government for an independent panel to be formed to evaluate the post-mortem report given to the mother of Revnesh Kumar.
“I raise this issue because the minister said that we must reduce morbidity as a process towards pandemicity. So because of that, if we want to reduce fear among the parents, then this independent panel will be helpful,” he added.
Dr Noor Azmi, in his reply, said that the matter involving the teenager was handled by minister Khairy Jamaluddin and the Director-General of Health Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, and the parents of the victim have been briefed about the incident.
“And what we carry out today, in each case which has a mild or serious AEFI (adverse event following immunisation), especially the very serious ones, the NPRA takes a serious responsibility in evaluating, deciding what is the causality. For example, when there is a death or anything serious,” he said.
