Skip to content
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on August 8, said that the study on mixing and matching of COVID-19 vaccines, namely Covaxin and Covishield, showed better results.
“Study on mixing & matching of COVID vaccines, Covaxin & Covishield shows the better result,” news agency ANI has quoted ICMR as saying.
“Immunisation with a combination of an adenovirus vector platform-based vaccine followed by inactivated whole virus vaccine was not only safe but also elicited better immunogenicity,” the study showed.
Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Serum Institute’s Covishield were the first two COVID-19 vaccines to receive emergency use approval in India and are the most widely used in the country.
Earlier on July 30, The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation) had recommended granting a nod for a mix-and-match trial of two COVID-19 vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin.
It, however, asked the Hyderabad-based vaccine maker to remove the word “interchangeability” from the study title and submit a revised protocol for approval.
“The SEC (subject expert committee) recommended granting permission to CMC, Vellore for conducting the phase-4 clinical trial covering 300 healthy volunteers for mixing of COVID-19 vaccines Covaxin and Covishield,” a source told PTI.
ICMR, in its earlier study, also said that Covaxin was effective against the Delta Plus variant of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, with 39,070 people testing positive for coronavirus infection, India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 3,19,34,455. At the same time, the death toll climbed to 4,27,862 with 491 fresh fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on August 8.
The active cases have declined to 4,06,822 and comprise 1.27 percent of the total infections, and the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 97.39 percent, the data updated at 8 am showed.
Cumulatively 50.68 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered under the nationwide vaccination drive till Sunday morning.
