Covaxin works against all emerging variants: Study

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

A significant new research on the effectiveness of Covaxin has revealed that the two-dose India-made Covid vaccine works against all emerging variants.

Published today in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a peer reviewed journal, the study titled “Neutralisation of variant under investigation B.1.617 with sera of BBV152 vaccine” concluded that inoculation with Covaxin produced neutralising titres against all key emerging variants tested, including BI617 and B117 — first identified in India and the UK, respectively.

In India, the majority burden of cases in the second wave has been on account of the B1617 variant, first identified in December in Maharashtra.

The study, conducted by scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), showed a modest reduction in neutralisation by a factor of 1.95 against the B1617 variant compared to vaccine variant D614G (the original Sars-CoV2 variant isolated in Wuhan, where Covid originated in December 2019).

The study revealed that “despite the mild reduction in neutralisation, the neutralising titre levels (concentration of neutralising antibodies against the virus) with B1617 remained above levels expected to be protective. No difference in neutralisation between B117 and vaccine strain D614G (the Wuhan strain) was observed”.

Suchitra Ella, managing director of Bharat Biotech, the makers of Covaxin, today hailed the development, saying, “Covaxin gets international recognition yet again by scientific research data demonstrating protection against the new variants. Another feather in its cap.”

The ICMR earlier showed that only two to four persons in every 10,000 inoculated with Covaxin and Covishield reported breakthrough infections.

“The narrative on breakthrough infections is quite distant from reality. The incidence in India is very low. Even if Covid infection occurs after the first and the second dose of the vaccine, it does not cause severe disease,” ICMR chief Balram Bhargava said.

An ICMR study on 93,56,436 people who received the first dose of Covaxin has shown that 4,208 (0.04 pc) had breakthrough infection. The proportion was the same for those who received the second dose of Covaxin (of 17,37,178 who received the second dose, 695 were infected with Covid).