The Print spreads fake news claiming Centre is conducting study to assess sudden deaths of young Indians after COVID-19, gets fact-checked by PIB

Media portal The Print was recently seen spreading fake news about a purported study being conducted by the Central government to analyse a pattern “to assess the pattern of sudden deaths” in India after the COVID-19 pandemic. The Print published a news article on July 8, 2025, in which it claimed that the health research department (DHR) of the Union Ministry of Health is collaborating with INCLEN (The International Clinical Epidemiology Network) International, a New Delhi-based health research organisation, to conduct a national, community-level study to examine the rise in deaths among people under 45 years of age.

Screenshot of the news article published by The Print

Quoting INCLEN International Executive Director and proposed lead analyst N.K. Arora, the Print further claimed that “the new nationwide assessment will aim to document sudden deaths at the community level across states”. It added that “this larger study will analyse the trend of such deaths in an attempt to determine the risk factors for such mortalities”.

However, the Print news article was fact-checked by the PIB, which termed the claims made in it as fake.

The PIB posted on X, “In a news report, @ThePrintIndia has claimed that the Centre has commissioned a nationwide study to assess the pattern of sudden deaths in India. No such nationwide survey has been commissioned by the Centre or @DeptHealthRes (DHR).”

Claims linking sudden deaths to COVID vaccine

Several claims linking sudden deaths caused by heart attack to the COVID-19 vaccine have been spreading across social media for years. However, the central government debunked all these claims earlier this month, on the grounds of two extensive studies conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR) and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The studies found that there was no direct link between sudden deaths by heart attack and the COVID-19 vaccines.

Besides, studies by the ICMR and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) affirmed that COVID-19 vaccines in India are safe and effective, with extremely rare instances of serious side effects. Sudden deaths due to heart attacks can be linked to a wide range of factors, including genetics, lifestyle, pre-existing conditions, and post-COVID complications.

To understand the causes of sudden, unexplained deaths, especially in young adults between the ages of 18 and 45 years, the ICMR and the NCDC conducted a study across 47 tertiary care hospitals in 19 states and UTs. Another study conducted by AIIMS with ICMR funding also examined cases of sudden cardiac deaths and found genetic mutations, pre-existing conditions, and lifestyle as the primary causes of these deaths and no correlation with Covid-19 vaccination. 

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