‘Vaccine effective in preventing Covid deaths’: AIIMS study
NEW DELHI: The vaccines against Covid-19 are effective in preventing deaths in those patients who tested Covid-19 positive after vaccination, according to a recent study.
The study, conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi, on breakthrough infection in individuals who got the infection after getting the vaccine, revealed that there was no fatality.
The study published in collaboration with other bodies such as CSIR-IGIB, Academy for Scientific and Innovative Research, Human Resource Development Centre Campus, along with AIIMS was conducted on 63 breakthrough infections.
Of these, 36 patients had received both doses, while 27 had received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Ten patients were given Covishield and 53 received Covaxin.
The study was done during April-May when the second wave of the pandemic was at its peak.
The patients had a mean age of 37 (21-92), among which 41 were male and 22 were female.
None of the patients had any comorbidities that could act as a predisposing factor for breakthrough infections.
According to the study, in the present group of vaccine breakthrough infections investigated using genome sequencing, closely overlapping and mirroring the Covid-19 cases in the state of Delhi, the variants of concern are B.1.617.2 and B.1.1.7 comprising the majority cases.
“Viral load at the time of diagnosis was high in all the patients irrespective of status or type of vaccine received and the initial course of disease with high-grade non remitting fever lasted for five to seven days in the vaccinated group, similar to the clinical presentation in unvaccinated patients,” it added.
While a number of vaccine breakthrough infections have been reported previously, it has been largely associated with non-severe symptoms.
“While antibody levels for a subset of patients were available, they became infected nevertheless and presented to the emergency just like other patients, putting in doubt the protection offered and or clinical relevance of total immunoglobulin G (IgG) as a surrogate of Covid-19 immunity,” the report said.