2 Covaxin shots provide high immunity in breakthrough cases: ICMR

A recent ICMR study has shown that breakthrough cases after full vaccination with Covaxin have shown a significant increase in the immune response against coronavirus' variants of concern —Beta, Delta and Omicron.

 

Individuals who recovered from Covid also showed significant immunity boost post-vaccination with Covaxin but lower than the breakthrough cases.

However, those who had taken two doses of Covaxin had very low neutralizing titres demonstrating the waning immunity after three months of the second dose of Covaxin, the study showed.

 

"The study highlights the significance of administering a booster dose or precaution dose of Covid vaccine as it provides better protection against the disease," Dr Pragya Yadav, a senior scientist at NIV Pune and the lead investigator of the study, told PTI.

 

The findings of the study, conducted in February this year after isolating the Omicron variant, have been published in the Journal of Infection on April 5.

"The impact of the third wave of the pandemic in India, caused by Omicron, triggered us to study the effectiveness of Covaxin against this variant.

 

"We assessed the sera of naïve, recovered and breakthrough cases vaccinated with Covaxin for its neutralising ability against Omicron and other variants," she stated.