3 min readHyderabadMar 12, 2026 06:33 AM IST In 2021, when COVID-19 cases were surging across India, G Venugopalan, a father of two, was battling a different demon. His 20-year-old daughter Karunya, an M Sc Data Science student who was administered the Covishield vaccine on June 8, 2021, developed acute side effects within 10 days — including swelling of the airway and severe leg pain. “When we took her to the hospital on June 20, the doctors said that her condition was unconnected with vaccination, because at that time the vaccine was considered safe,” Venugopalan, a Kerala native settled in Coimbatore, told The Indian Express. Within five days, she was shifted to a tertiary care hospital but died on July 10, 2021. In Hyderabad, Rachana Gangu, a mother of two, had already faced a similar situation. Gangu’s daughter Rithaika Sri Omtri, 18, who took Covishield on May 29, 2021, developed acute adverse effects five days later. “She was complaining of a severe headache, blotches of blood clots on her palms, and her platelet count was …