Pune: World Health Organization (WHO) Speaker of Scientist Dr.
Soumya Swaminathan on Friday said India can begin research on heterologists’ administration of various covid-19 vaccines to learn the extent and duration of the immune response and protection.
“In the long term, if effective and safe, such a strategy can help state managing supply constraints, while providing flexibility in vaccination programs.
It is also possible that the combination has the advantage in stimulating immune responses, but this can only be confirmed through research studies,” said Swaminathan Tii.
Two recent studies have shown that the astrazeneca vaccine was followed by a bionech / pfizer as a second dose resulted in the high level of neutralization antibodies.
“There are studies that occur.
We need to wait for them, but when we only have data on the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine followed by a bionech / pfizer, which is encouraging.
We need safety and immunogenicity data on different combinations,” he said.
India has not started a study in this regard, officials from the Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR) said.
“Until now, we did not bring such research.
However, we can explore in the near future,” said the senior epidemiology of Dr.
Samiran Panda.
Top Virologically T Jacob John also agreed with Dr.
Swaminathan.
“Research must be done to explore this option.
If it helps in bringing out a larger immune response, it can help in overcoming vaccine shortages,” he said.
In the emergency use list for Covaxin, the Head of WHO scientist said the organization was expected to make decisions in this case in four to six weeks as an independent technical assessment panel was evaluating proposals and data delivered.
With many countries discussing a booster dose, he said there is a need to prioritize doses for countries where health care workers and front lines, as well as parents and vulnerable, have not received their first dose.
“If the country starts managing booster shots, this will require a large number of doses.
In addition, there is no scientific evidence to show that the booster is definitely needed.
What we have observed is the perseverance of immune responses in the majority of individuals who are vaccinated for at least 8-9 months.
Whether a group of certain people will eventually need a booster is something we need to understand through a cohort follow-up study, “he said.
He said the need for booster was also different from the type of vaccine because they were made using different technology.