Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The government on Saturday insisted that the decision to increase the gap between two doses of Covishield to 12-16 weeks was based purely on scientific data and also reiterated that Covaxin production will be raised to 10 crore doses per month soon.
VK Paul, member (health) Niti Aayog and the head of the country’s national Covid-19 task force, said in a briefing on the pandemic status 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 and added the argument that the decision was taken under some kind of pressure trivialises the matter.
“Our scientific institutions comprise independent scientists. The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization is a standing committee that guided the country in the past – on rotavirus and several other immunization policies. 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 then and the country’s scientific body did not recommend it thinking that there could be a risk of breakthrough infections.
“Just a single dose and delayed second dose could make the chance of infection higher. When clinical trials of the vaccine 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 the protocol and there was a delay in administering the second dose,” said Paul.
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“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,” he explained.
On the rationale behind the change of stance now, Paul said that 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% and also reduces the risk of transmission. “So now we got the confidence to implement the gap.”
It was also reiterated in the briefing that while 1.5 crore doses of Covaxin are being manufactured in India as of now, this number will go up to 10 crore months very soon.
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Bharat Biotech, said Paul, will start manufacturing 7.5 crore doses every month from August and will further raise it to 10 crore doses. The total Covaxin production, according to him, will go up to 13 crore doses per month once the three public-sector undertakings that have entered into a tie-up with Bharat Biotech for production scale-up start rolling out the vaccines.
