Mixing Covaxin and Covishiled elicits better immunogenicity, says ICMR study

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on Sunday, came out with the results of one of the first studies of mixing doses of Covishield and Covaxin.

The study states that a combination of adenovirus vector platform vaccine followed by an inactivated whole virus vaccine is safe and elicits better immunogenicity than 2 doses of homologous mixing.

Meanwhile, India recorded 39,070 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours ending at 8 am on Sunday, pushing the cumulative count to over 3.19 crore (3,19,34,455). The death toll, too, climbed up to 4,27,862 with 491 daily fatalities, the Union health ministry’s update on Sunday read.

Kerala remains the top contributor with daily cases breaching the 20,000-mark again.

The active cases declined to 4,06,822 in the said time period. The national Covid-19 recovery rate has improved to 1.29 per cent, it stated. The number of active cases fell by 5,331 in the last 24 hours.

As many as 17,22,221 Covid-19 tests were conducted on Saturday, taking the total number of tests done so far to 48,00,39,185. India’s case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent.

India, on Saturday, granted the American pharma giant Johnson & Johnson emergency use authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine, paving the way for J&J’s Indian subsidiary to introduce in India for commercial use the first single-dose vaccine against infection with the novel coronavirus.

The single-shot vaccine, developed by J&J subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, has been shown to be 85 per cent effective in preventing severe disease in phase 3 human clinical trials.

This is the second Covid-19 vaccine to be granted emergency use authorisation through the fast-track approval route by the Indian drug regulator. After the approval, J&J, like Moderna, will not be required to conduct bridging studies in India to establish the safety of the vaccine.

“India expands its vaccine basket! Johnson and Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine is given approval for Emergency Use in India. Now India has 5 EUA vaccines. This will further boost our nation’s collective fight against #COVID19,” Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya said in a tweet.