COVID-19: Not much difference in breakthrough infections for Covaxin, Covishield

There is not much difference in breakthrough COVID-19 infections amongst those vaccinated with Covishield and Covaxin vaccines, as per government data.

Detection of coronavirus in a vaccinated person after 14 days of receiving COVID-19 vaccine is called  breakthrough infection.

As per government data, 23,940 people got infected by COVID-19 after taking Bharat Biotech's Covaxin in India, which is 0.13 per cent of the total vaccine doses delivered. Of these, 18,427 were infected after the first dose, while 5,513 were infected after the second dose.

For Covishield, produced by the Serum Institute of India, 1,19,172 breakthrough infections have been reported, which is 0.07 per cent of the administered doses. Of these, 84,198 got infected after the first dose, while 34,874 got infected after the second dose.

While the absolute numbers are higher for Covishield, the difference isn't much in percentage terms.

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"When you compare in terms of percentage then both are comparable -- 0.13 per cent and 0.07 per cent, (there is) not much difference. When you see the number of cases after Covaxin is less, but the number of doses that have been administered is also less. The number of cases after Covishield is more than Covaxin, the number of doses of Covishield is also more," a government source said.

As of May 18, about 1.9 crore doses of Covaxin have been administered in the country, while the number for Covishield is much higher at 16,47,64,399 doses.

Some experts have said that vaccines don't protect against COVID-19 infection, but prevent infection from becoming severe and need for hospitalisation.

Amid the second wave of pandemic and opening up of vaccination for everyone above the age of 18 years, there is a shortage of vaccines in the country. While the second dose of Covaxin is administered 28 days after getting the first dose, the government has increased the gap between both doses of Covishield to 12-16 weeks from 6-8 weeks earlier.

India reported 2,67,334 new COVID-19 cases and 4,529 deaths due to the infection in the preceding 24 hours as of Wednesday morning.

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