- States waiting for vaccine supplies from centre
- Surge in cases worrying factor
- ‘Tika utsav’ comes to halt due to shortage of vaccines
Hyderabad: Vaccination drive in India which started with huge campaign looks to be in trouble after many states urged central government to supply vaccines as there appears to be shortage in supply. Reasons are many for the shortage, with states wasting vaccines during first phase one of them. As per the Central Government, first phase of vaccine drive was for frontline health workers and the agreed who are above 60 yrs, but in many states front line health workers did not come forward to take vaccine and the stability of vaccine got evaporated and went into dustbins as wastage.
Secondly, few corporate hospitals administered vaccine to youngsters in black market keeping senior citizens in waiting list. At the same time, parallel to this, the doubts on COVAXIN vaccine led the company Bharat Biotech to export the vials as they should not be wasted. This led to shortage of COVAXIN in country.
COVISHILED which was manufactured by Serum Institute faced many critics across the globe stating that the vaccine after inculcation caused clots and side effects. Here are the few facts on COVISHIELD:
There were no clots reported in Indians after it was inoculated as per reports across country. Out of 12 crore Indians who got vaccinated, nearly 11 crores were given COVISHILED and 776 cases were reported with clots and side effects. But detailed study on these cases suggested that clots were not due to vaccine. The major side effects after vaccine were severe body pains, fever and weakness or fatigue which lasted from 2days to 2 weeks.
COVISHILED and COVAXIN both are good
Both these vaccines are doing well as per experts. The gap for COVAXIN from first dose should be more than 4 weeks for second one. For COVISHILED, the gap from first dose to second dose was suggested for 4 weeks period, but later the gap was increased to 6 weeks. As per experts, after first dose got administered, nearly 55% antibodies were formed and after a gap of 4 weeks, 65%, after 6 weeks, 85% antibodies were formed. The efficacy after 2 doses administered and with a gap of 15 days from second dose is nearly 94% as per Lancet report which is good as per doctors.
Will COVID attack after two doses administered?
Yes, even after two doses were administered, there are chances of testing positive for COVID, but the difference will be impact of virus on human body. Those who got administered two doses are clearly safe from mortality and getting hospitalised. Don’t forget that these vaccines which are developed across globe like Pfizer, Moderna, or Covishiled, Covaxin, all are immunity boosters only which act as BULLET PROOFS but not of complete cure or ZERO effect of virus.
Person who got first dose will show positive for few days if tested when he inoculated with COVISHIELD as the process of preparing it is using viral vector platform which is totally different technology. After injecting two doses of COVISHILED and after gap of 15 days from second dose, antibodies will be formed completely and get immunity to fight against virus as per experts. That means from day one of first dose, it will take a time of 60 days for a person to get 90% protection.
Shortage of Remdisivir in India
Remdisivir injection an antiviral which is used for Corona treatment as emergency was exported without any proper planning and reserving the medicine for domestic use. Now states are witnessing the shortage of vials. Even Telangana state which has plenty doses on hand, supplied the doses to neighbouring state Maharashtra and the availability of these injections shows NO STOCK In Telangana too for emergency use. The black marketeers are ruling the roost now selling it at five times higher price than usual. Telangana Health Minister Etala Rajender had an emergency meeting with CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday on this issue.
Central Government also threw up its hands after knowing the shortage of Remdisivir injection and ordered companies to produce nearly 75 million doses on a war footing.
