Haryana health minister Anil Vij in stable condition; BJP leader undergoing treatment for COVID-19

Chandigarh: The condition of Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij, who is undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a Gurgaon hospital, is stable, according to an official statement Wednesday. Vij, 67, was shifted to Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon Tuesday evening. The minister, who was admitted to Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in Rohtak on Sunday after he complained of discomfort, had tested positive for COVID-19 on 5 December. “Haryana Home and Health Minister Anil Vij, who was admitted to Medanta-The Medicity on 15 December at 9 pm, and is undergoing treatment for COVID-19, is stable and he is maintaining vitals parameters on high flow nasal cannula on oxygen support,” the statement said. In a medical bulletin, Dr AK Dubey, medical superintendent, Medanta, said Vij was transferred from PGIMS Rohtak with COVID pneumonia and was admitted to the ICU. Relevant investigations, including CT scan, have been done and the results are satisfactory. “He slept well last night and had his meals. He is likely to stay in the ICU for a few days,” the statement quoting the bulletin said, adding that Vij was being monitored by a team of doctors. On Tuesday, Vij’s younger brother Rajinder Vij had told reporters outside PGIMS, “We are shifting him to Medanta because we are not seeing the kind of improvement which we were expecting.” He had said that the doctors at the Rohtak hospital “gave their best treatment” and “provided best facilities”, yet there had not been much improvement in the minister’s condition. On Monday, he was examined by a special medical board comprising a team of senior doctors of PGIMS at Rohtak. A medical bulletin issued by the PGIMS hospital had said that the vital parameters of the minister were normal and he was undergoing convalescent plasma therapy. The minister had last month got one shot of the two-dose trial of Covaxin after he offered to be a volunteer. The firebrand BJP leader had offered to be the first volunteer in the phase three trials for Covaxin, an indigenous potential vaccine being developed by Bharat Biotech against COVID-19. He was administered the dose on 20 November at the Civil Hospital in Ambala Cantonment, about 50 km from Chandigarh. Bharat Biotech had said that clinical trials of the vaccine are based on a two-dose schedule, given 28 days apart. The vaccine efficacy will 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 had 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 had 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.