CHENNAI: Only 43% of the 7.12 lakh healthcare providers in the state —for whom the national wide vaccination camp was open since January 16 —have completed two doses of the vaccine, but strands of evidences emerging from hospitals show that vaccine has protected a large number of doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff from the viral infection.
On Friday, doctors at the Christian Medical College said the 2600-bed hospital in Vellore vaccinated 84.8% of their employees between January 21 and April 30 – at least 93.4% received Covishield.
In June, after a detailed study, doctors concluded that the protective effect of vaccination in preventing infection was 65%, but it increased to 77% for hospitalisation and 94% when it came to ICU admission.
“Ramping up vaccination is essential to prevent the third wave.
It was not easy to vaccinate these many health care workers initially.
But administrators took the vaccine on day one and then appealed to each department to get vaccinated.
It was slow but worked and we are reaping that benefit now,” said CMC director Dr J V Peter, who is one of the authors of the study.
Between February 21 and May 19, 1,350 staff members in CMC tested positive for Covid-19.
An analysis showed nearly 27% of people infected with Covid-19 were not vaccinated compared to10% who received at least one dose and 9% who received both doses.
While 4% of those who were not vaccinated required hospitalisation, less than 1% of those who received both the shots required it.
Another study by Apollo Hospitals also showed that while vaccination does not provide100% immunity, infections were more common in nonvaccinated than partially or fully vaccinated people.
At least 3,225 healthcare workers who had symptomatic SARSCOV-2 infection during the first 100 days of the vaccination drive (16th January to 24th April 2021) were studied.
Evaluation of the post-vaccination infections showed 85 out of 3,235 were infected with Covid-19 after vaccination, during the study period.
Out of these, 65 were fully vaccinated, and 20 were partially vaccinated.
Among those vaccinated only two cases required hospitalization and none needed an ICU admission, and there were no deaths, the study showed.
Similarly, doctors from Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) said the spread of infection among doctors was slower in the first wave, but there were instances of severe disease needing intensive care.
Of the 284 doctors who were infected since March last year, 78 of them were tested positive between April and May.
“The rate of infection was higher in the second wave this year.
But most doctors recovered with mild symptoms and were mostly advised home isolation.
No one exhibited severe symptoms or required intensive care,” said professor (pathology) of Jipmer N G Rajesh.