As India logs 39k cases, ICMR says mix of Covishield, Covaxin yields better results

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has revealed in its study that the combination of Covaxin and Covishield vaccines conducted on 18 people, has elicited better safety and immunogenicity results. The study results came on the day India registered 39,070 fresh Covid-19 cases, of which Kerala saw 18,607 new infections.

In the study, ICMR compared the safety and immunogenicity profile with those individuals who received either Covaxin or Covishield and it showed better results. The study conducted on individuals in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in India received Covishield as the first dose followed by inadvertent administration of Covaxin as the second dose at an interval of six weeks.

As per Dr Samiran Panda, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, ICMR, “It was like a natural experiment when second time these individuals inoculated with different doses inadvertently.” He said that ICMR decided to conduct the study so that people would not get anxiety or vaccine hesitancy. “We went to the place and collected samples of individuals,” he added.

A total of 18 participants were in the heterologous group. However, two participants were unwilling and were excluded. Among them, 11 were male, and seven were female with a median age of 62 years.

“A comorbid condition (hypertension) was reported in one (5.5 per cent) individual. In both the homologous groups, 40 individuals were included,” the study said. “We compared the safety and immunogenicity profile of them against that of individuals receiving either Covishield or Covaxin (n=40 in each group). Lower and similar adverse events following immunization in all three groups underlined the safety of the combination vaccine regime. The immunogenicity profile against Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants in the heterologous group was superior; IgG antibody and neutralising antibody response of the participants was also significantly higher compared to that in the homologous groups,” the study said.

Meanwhile, India reported 39,070 fresh Covid-19 cases, while 43,910 people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday. The active cases of Covid-19 in the country now stands at 4,06,822.

Of these, Kerala recorded 18,607 new infections on Sunday, the state health department said in a bulletin. With 93 more deaths, the Covid death toll of the state rose to 17,747. At present, there are 176,572 active cases in Kerala.