CHANDIGARH: With no efficacy studies done on
Covishield and Covaxin, the
PGI doctors are apprehensive about these anti-Covid vaccines,
Covaxin especially. As a priority group, health workers will be jabbed first.
There are some who wouldn't take the
vaccine and others who for confidence will wait until the publications or data are out. The approval for emergency use authorisation (EUA) to Covishield and Covaxin in the country means that the health workers can be inoculated anytime soon.
A PGI scientist said: “A peer review journal claims that Pfizer's vaccine has 95% efficacy, which seems to be the best, but the Indian government is reluctant to buy it because of high cost and sophisticated maintenance. The
Oxford vaccine (Indian version Covishield) has 60% efficacy, just above the recommended 50%.”
He said: “India's Covaxin is in phase-3 trial. No efficacy data or peer review is available as of now. The government is perhaps taken in by its safety data, I am not sure, really. I might never take it unless I see the efficacy data. Covaxin is just like the Sputnik V vaccine of Russia, where the government approved it without the efficacy data.”
It doesn't imply that the
doctors or health workers are against the vaccines. Only in the absence of any clarity on the efficacy data, they are not confident about the protection these offer. A member of the PGI faculty said: “We will have to take a vaccine for sure to achieve herd immunity but with proven efficacy. At the moment, only Oxford vaccine seems to be available. It seems safe but none of other candidates (even Bharat Biotech's Covaxin) have yet proved efficacy in Indian population, so I am sceptical.”
The city's 8,830 healthcare workers, including those in the private sector, have signed up for the priority shot in the first phase. A PGI epidemiologist said: “We shouldn't rush vaccination. It's better to wait another three to six months till the data from other countries is out and our own vaccine trials have had a longer follow-up. In this pandemic, India's mortality rate is different from others. We don't know if these vaccines offer any long-term protection. Simple measures such as universal masking works.”
The central government has sanctioned a walk-in-refrigerator to Chandigarh for augmenting its vaccination effort. Post-Covid-care clinics operate well in Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, and Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16, where doctors monitor an average of 20 Covid-19 patients daily.