NEW DELHI: The Centre on Saturday insisted the decision to increase the gap between two doses of
Covishield vaccine to 12-16 weeks was purely based on scientific data and also reiterated that Covaxin production will be raised to 10 crore doses per month soon. V K Paul, member (health) Niti Aayog and the head of national Covid-19 task force, said in a briefing that the narrative that the gap between two doses of Covishield has been raised owing to the scarcity of vaccines is “saddening”.
“I am pleading to all of you with folded hands to put these controversies to rest,” he said. “National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation is a standing committee that guided the country in the past. Scientists of this panel deliberate and then come to a consensus,” he said.Paul added that India earlier did not go for the gap of 12 weeks, despite a decision by the UK to do so, as there was no evidence on its effectiveness back.
“Just a single dose and delayed second dose could make the chance of infection higher. When clinical trials were conducted, the standard protocol was to administer the two doses in a gap of four to six weeks. Somewhere there was a breach in this protocol and there was a delay in administering the second dose,” said Paul.
“This breach should not have happened, but it happened. After analysis, it was found that delaying the second dose did not make any difference. But that was not considered robust evidence to extend the gap between the doses.”
Explaining the rationale behind the change of stance now, Paul said that there is “real-life evidence” from lakhs of people in the UK, showing that a gap of 12 weeks reduces the risk of infection by 60-85 per cent and also reduces the risk of transmission. “So now we got the confidence to implement the gap,” he further said. It was also reiterated in the briefing that while 1.5 crore doses of Covaxin is being manufactured in India as of now, this number will go up to 10 crore per month very soon.