Covid-19: Mix of Covishield, Covaxin yields better results, says ICMR Study

The Indian Council of Medical Research ICMR has revealed in its study that the combination of Covaxin and Covishield vaccines the two main vaccines of the Covid19 vaccination programme conducted on 18 people has elicited better safety and immunogenicity resultsThe nationwide vaccination program had entered into 4th month when the event of mixed dosing raised considerable anxiety in the public domain with the potential to contributing to vaccine hesitancy ICMR conducted the current investigation against that backdropIn the study ICMR compared the safety and immunogenicity profile with those individuals who received either Covaxin or Covishield and it showed better resultsThe 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 weeksAs 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 inadvertentlyHe informed 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 said Dr PandaAlso read Covid19 India records 39070 new cases says Health MinistryA 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 yearsA comorbid condition hypertension was reported in one 55 per cent individual In both the homologous groups 40 individuals were included the study saidWe compared the safety and immunogenicity profile of them against that of individuals receiving either Covishield or Covaxin n40 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 saidThe findings of the study suggest that immunization with a combination of an adenovirus vector platformbased vaccine followed by an inactivated whole virus vaccine was not only safe but also elicited better immunogenicityWe did a comparison with heterogeneous group and homologous group we found better immune response if somebody gets Covishield first and Covaxin second that it gives better immunity This is the first study on a combination of Adenovector and whole variant vaccines said Dr PandaExplaining how the combination of two vaccines work Dr Sameer Bhati Public Health Expert stated that both Covaxin and Covishield are based on two different formulas where Covaxin contains dead virus of Covid and instructs the immune system to develop a defense against the virus while the Covishield is based on the virus vector formula where a weak virus of the common cold is used to develop immunity against Covid virusAlthough both vaccines tend to develop the immunity against the same virus The mixing of two vaccines may be beneficial for the public and may surely result in removing vaccine hesitancy and speed up the vaccination he saidHowever Dr Bhati added that more detailed and indepth research must be done on the limitations as the study is done merely on 18 participants For implementation of the same at the national level it must be analysed more and in detail keeping in mind the variety of population Also a detailed study on followup period of 60 to 70 days is also required he further saidHowever the Immunization program against Covid19 in India started with two vaccines AstraZenecas ChAdOx1nCov19 termed Covishield in India and inactivated whole virion BBV152 CovaxinThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever