The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently revealed that mixing and matching of Covaxin and Covishield, the Covid-19 vaccines available in India, have shown better results in building immunity against the virus.
According to a study by ICMR, immunisation with a combination of an adenovirus vector platform-based vaccine followed by inactivated whole virus vaccine was not only safe but also gave better immunity against the variant strains of SARS-CoV-2.
The study also suggests that such mixed regimens will also help to overcome the challenges of shortfall of particular vaccines and remove hesitancy around vaccines in people’s minds that could have genesis in programmatic ‘errors’ especially in settings where multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being used.
However, the ICMR study is yet to be peer-reviewed. The Council admitted that there are few limitations to their study.
Meanwhile, earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had warned against the mixing of vaccines saying there was very little information on the mix-and-match of vaccines.
Moreover, it advised against people mixing and matching vaccines from different manufacturers, calling it a “dangerous trend” since there was little data available about the health impact.
According to reports, on July 30, a Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) recommended conducting a study on mixing doses of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines.
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