Informist, Thursday, May 20, 2021

By Rajat Mishra and Pragya Srivastava

NEW DELHI — The government's COVID-19 working group plans to study the feasibility of administering doses of different vaccines to the same person.

"This mix and match studies are going to be started in India as well, as soon as some of the new vaccines come in," N. K. Arora, the head of the COVID working group, told Informist.

"So there can be a mix and match between Covishield and Sputnik, there can be a mix and match between Covishield and Covaxin or Sputnik," Arora said.

The purpose of conducting these studies, called interchangeability studies, is to offer the best protection to people and attain programmatic convenience, Arora said.

Preliminary results of a mix and match study in Spain found that administering Pfizer vaccine as the booster shot after first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and effective.

Similar studies are being conducted in the UK and Canada as well. 

India, which is predominantly administering AstraZeneca's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin vaccines, has just rolled out Russia's Sputnik-V vaccine.

"I think in June or early July, larger consignments of Sputnik-V, both from imported and local manufactures, will come. Then it will be introduced in the national programme," Arora said

Vaccines produced by Zydus Cadila and Novavax, and Gennova Biopharmaceuticals' mRNA are expected to be available from August.

Last week, the government announced that India will manufacture over 2.16 bln doses of COVID-19 vaccines during Aug-Dec, which will include 750 mln doses of Covishield, 550 mln doses of Covaxin, 156 mln doses of Sputnik, 200 mln doses of Novavax, 60 mln doses of Gennova Biopharmaceuticals' mRNA. 

India has so far administered at least one dose of vaccine to 187 mln people, accounting for 14% of the population. Many states have been witnessing severe shortage of vaccines after inoculation was opened for all above the age of 18 years from May 1.  End

Edited by Mainak Moitra

Cogencis news is now Informist. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2021. All rights reserved.