Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij, who was undergoing treatment for coronavirus at Rohtak's Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), has been shifted to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram on Tuesday after no improvement in his health condition.
Vij's younger brother Rajinder Vij said, "We are shifting him to Medanta because we are not seeing the kind of improvement which we were expecting".
Rajinder Vij said Rohtak hospital "gave their best treatment" and "provided best facilities", yet there has not been much improvement (in Anil Vij's condition).
This week only, Anil Vij was examined by a special medical board comprising a team of senior doctors of PGIMS. A medical bulletin issued by the hospital said the vital parameters of the minister were normal and he was undergoing convalescent plasma therapy. However, the minister had fever, it said.
The bulletin said that Anil Vij had "moderate COVID-19 with bilateral viral pneumonia".
Last month, 67-year-old Vij volunteered himself for Bharat Biotech's coronavirus vaccine trial. The firebrand BJP leader had offered to be the first volunteer in the phase three trials for Covaxin. Vij was given one shot of the two-dose trial of Covaxin on November 20 at the Civil Hospital in Ambala Cantonment.
Subsequently, he got infected from COVID-19 on December 5.
Bharat Biotech had said that clinical trials of the vaccine are based on a two-dose schedule, given 28 days apart. The vaccine efficacy can be determined two weeks after the second dose, it said.
Covaxin has been designed to be protective two weeks after volunteers receive the second dose.
The Union health ministry also stepped in to say that Covaxin is a two-dose anti-coronavirus vaccine and that Vij was given only the first dose a fortnight before he tested positive.
"The antibodies against the infection build up in a human being only after a specific number of days pass after the second dose of the vaccine is taken. This is a two-dose vaccine. The minister in question has taken only one dose of the vaccine," the ministry said in a statement.
Vij had earlier said that he had gone to Panipat a few days prior to testing positive for coronavirus where he spent two to three hours with a BJP leader, who too tested positive for COVID-19.