The government held an emergency meeting on Friday amid reports of clotting of blood in some patients in Europe who had received shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and it was concluded that no such problem had been reported in India, said Dr. N.K Arora, head of the operations research group of the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Task Force for COVID-19, in an online interaction with Indian Police Service (IPS) officers on Saturday.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, known as Covishield in India, is produced by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII). The other vaccine available in India is Covaxin, produced by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.
Dr. Arora said that the finding from India had been shared with the World Health Organization (WHO), and that most European countries had restarted their vaccination programme. He claimed that, overall, if 10,000 people were vaccinated, then adverse symptoms such as fever, swelling, redness and pain, were reported only in 40 cases.
“Yesterday [Friday], 97.5% of the people who developed symptoms (post vaccination), had these adverse events. So overall, among 10,000, only 40 were having significant symptoms...I am using these figures as I am talking to an illustrious group. Adverse symptoms are uncommon. We have given 4 crore injections, [and] have not lost individuals because of severe events,” Dr. Arora said.
Dr. V.K. Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, who also participated in the interaction, said that the incidence of AEFI (adverse events following immunisation) was minimum, at 0.05% .
The virtual meeting on COVID-19 vaccination was organised by the IPS (Central) Association and moderated by senior IPS officer Aditya Mishra.
At least two IPS officers sought to know which of the two vaccines was more effective.
Responding to this, Dr. Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, said that it would be months before a comparison could be made, but both vaccines were equally effective.
“Covaxin uses inactive platform and Covishield uses virus vector platform to put spike protein in [the] body. Currently, both [are] given through intramuscular route….both vaccines produce good amount of antibodies...We should take the vaccines available to us. It would be many months [before] we could compare A to B, but they are more or less equally effective. Considering we have to vaccinate large number of people, both have been approved,” Dr. Guleria said.
He added that the vaccines could provide protection for “at least eight months-one year” and even longer, but it would depend on how the virus behaved and how the protection evolved for different populations.
Dr. Arora said that 30% of people infected by COVID-19 may not develop antibodies, and if they took the vaccines, it would act as a booster.
There are 22 categories of people, including those above 60 years and frontline workers, who had been prioritised by the government for vaccination.
“Pregnant women and children below 18 years are not to be given the vaccines for lack of scientific study so far. Individuals suffering from hypertension, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, or those who are on blood thinners, can get the vaccine...those who are taking cancer drugs and suffering from auto immune disorder, even they can take it. People with severe obesity should get it, liver or kidney disease should also get it. Our Indian data suggests that if anyone has these so called co-morbidities, including lung infection and asthma, if they get COVID, the risk of death is 17-20% higher...750 doctors and medical personnel lost their lives, 1,500 police personnel died, it is mindboggling and painful. Take the vaccine at topmost priority,” Dr. Arora said.
Dr. Paul said the supply of vaccines was limited and they have to be given to people who need them the most. “78% deaths are among people above 50 years,” he said, adding that the police could play a role in enforcing COVID-19 appropriate behaviour.
“A narrative is created [that] if we have two billion doses today, then everybody could be vaccinated. It is dependent on monthly production, there isn’t a huge stockpile available. Barring some small nations and the Gulf nations, nobody is going beyond the priority groups. U.K has not even included healthcare workers. The goal of herd immunity is not being pursued by any other country except Israel,” Dr. Paul said, when asked why family members of police officers were also not being vaccinated.
“People seem to feel that COVID is over. The virus is still there, it has not gone away...we are allowing the virus to spread, parties are happening ...[there’s a] huge change in people’s attitude. One of the reason may be COVID fatigue but we will have to follow norms…[the] disease [is] spreading due to development of crowds, a lot of people are travelling, going on holidays. Non-essential travel should be curtailed,” Dr. Guleria said.
Dr. Paul said that enforcement played a role in containing the disease. “Chain of transmission has to stop. Containment zones have to demarcated, contacts have to be quarantined — it is an enforcement issue….When [there are] too many cases in a community, in a building or a gully (alley), the area is to be guarded so that the disease is contained. Enforcement will ensure ring-fencing [of] the infection,” Dr. Paul said.
