BENGALURU: Although the Centre recently made it clear that it won’t be reducing the gap between the two Covishield doses for efficacy reasons, experts feel that it may be time for the government to tweak the policy and shorten the gap between two doses.
In a recent study by Indian researchers, they detected signatures of the Delta infection in 25% of the 95 healthcare workers in five hospitals across New Delhi. These workers were fully vaccinated with Covishield. Karnataka also has been reporting more and more breakthrough infections, and hence, experts feel that it is time the second dose is given sooner to offer better protection against the virus.
“The primary purpose of protection from severe disease is well met by the vaccines, including Covishield. But the large proportion of breakthrough infections and increasing post-immunisation infection rate among single-dose recipients indicate an urgency to revise vaccination policies for more effective use of the existing vaccines,” a senior doctor said.
Experts are divided over the exact interval. Some experts said that the vaccination policy should be tailored to the local status of the spread of the infection and presence of Delta variant, hence, the duration should be reduced to four weeks from the current eight. Dr US Vishal Rao, Dean, Centre of Academic Research at HCG Cancer Centre, who is a member of the State’s Genomic Surveillance Committee, said, “Currently, we know that Delta and its sub-lineages have shown tendency towards vaccine escape mutations, but continue to be effective. There is no conclusive evidence to tweak vaccination policy currently. However, there seems to be an obvious need to accelerate vaccination.”
Virologist Prof Shahid Jameel said, “Science does support the increased gap of 8-12 weeks between doses. With over 800 million vaccine doses administered, we have about 58% people with one dose and 14.5% with both doses. This means about 77% of the 18+ population has received at least one dose.”
Even educational institutes claim that if several states like Haryana and even in Karnataka, if students, employees flying abroad are permitted to take early jabs, then why can’t the same privilege be extended to others? “If it is possible to prioritise people and reduce the gap between doses, then teachers and staff at educational institutions should also be considered for this,” said B Shashikumar, General Secretary of Private Schools’ Association.