A study on COVID vaccination and its association with disease severity among hospitalised patients for COVID-19 undertaken by Virudhunagar Government Medical College hospital has revealed that two doses of vaccine had provided significant protection from severe forms of the disease.
"Among fully vaccinated breathlessness, ICU admissions, death, abnormal CT findings and abnormal lab parameters were statistically significantly lower than in partially and unvaccinated," said hospital Dean, J. Sangumani.
The study was conducted on 983 COVID patients admitted to the hospital from March to December 2021. Amog them 92.9% were unvaccinated, 2.7% were fully-vaccinated, and 4.3% were partially-vaccinated.
Covid second wave started in March 2021 in Virudhunagar and vaccination for general public was started after March 1 -- people below 60 years and 45 – 60 years were the first beneficiaries.
Hence, the reference period was from March to December 2021. The study duration was three months from January 2022 till March 2022.
The study revealed that partially vaccinated were affected more, maybe due to insufficient immunity gained through single dose of vaccine and their careless attitude post-vaccination with decreased shielding behaviour.
Factors like symptomatic status, oxygen requirement, ICU admission, abnormal lab parameters and CT scan lung findings and death were used to determine the disease severity.
It was found that among fully vaccinated 11.1% of them had breathlessness, 25.9% required oxygen support, no one was in ICU, 85.2% were symptomatic and only 3.7% died.
This was comparatively low than in unvaccinated -- 31.1% breathlessness, 27.7% required oxygen, 2% were admitted in ICU, 70.6% were symtomatic and 4.6% had died. Among the partially vaccinated 39.5% suffered breathlessness, 41.9% needed oxygen support, 7% were admitted to the ICU, 81.4% were symptomatic and 18.6% died. But statistically significant differences between groups were found only for factors like breathlessness, ICU admission and death and not for other factors.
Hence, two dose of vaccination is important to protect people from COVID-19. More focus should be made on full vaccination of the community and educating the public that partial vaccination may not give them full immunity against the disease and emphasis on preventive measures even after vaccination must be made to reduce the burden of COVID 19 in the community, the Dean said.
