The Indian Council of Medical Research is going to conduct a survey from next week to understand the effectiveness of AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin across India.
ICMR To Test Covid 19 Vaccine’s Effect in a Survey
For the survey, around 4000 people above the age of 45 years who have taken either the first or the second dose of the vaccine will be reviewed. Dr Tarun Bhatnagar, Senior Scientist at ICMR’s National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE) said that the study will take people who tested positive for the coronavirus and were hospitalised in comparison to the vaccination status to those who tested Covid 19 negative.
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He said that the aim is to assess the effectiveness of the vaccination in preventing the progress of the pandemic virus into a severe form. He further noted that this study is the first of its kind since the launch of Covid 19 vaccines in the country. It is expected to start from next week.
The cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 20 crore so far. The central government in the past few months has been urging people to take the Covid 19 vaccines. They claim that it will prevent the spread of Covid 19 into a severe form and thus decrease the mortality rate.
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However, the government has also urged people to wear face masks and follow the Covid 19 safety protocols even after getting vaccinated. As of now, there are three vaccines available in the vaccination drive. It includes Covishield by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India and Covaxin by the Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad. The third one is the Russian vaccine named Sputnik V and has been used in a few private hospitals so far.
India Collaborates with Pfizer for Faster Vaccine Imports
While the Indian government has been accused for not being able to administer the Covid 19 vaccines appropriately, the head of India’s Covid 19 task force released a statement. VK Paul, NITI Aayog member said that they are working with the US major Pfizer for faster imports of the Covid 19 vaccines.
