The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI,) on the 10th of August, approved the study of mixing the doses of Covishield and COVAXIN.
The approval came after the recent research study by the Indian Council of Medical Science (ICMR.) On the 8th of August, the ICMR study regarding the mixing of Covishield and COVAXIN revealed that the cocktail of the two vaccines are better for people to fight the virus. The study read, “Such mixed regimens will also help to overcome the challenges of shortfall of particular vaccines and remove hesitancy around vaccines in people’s mind that could have genesis in programmatic ‘errors’ especially in settings where multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being used. However, to conclusively prove these findings a multicentre RCT needs to be carried out.”
After the basic report regarding the mixing of the two India made vaccines against the Wuhan virus (COVID-19,) the DCGI, approved the further study. The detailed study regarding the vaccine cocktail would be conducted by the Christian Medical College (CMC,) Vellore, Tamil Nadu. With this, the study would be a phase 4 clinical trial, which would be conducted by the CMC Vellore. The trial would be held on 300 healthy volunteers, who would be given mix doses of COVAXIN and Covishield.
While Covishield is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII,) Pune, the other vaccine, COVAXIN, is manufactured by the Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech International Private Limited.
The major purpose to conduct the trial is to see whether a person could be given two different vaccines and what would be its result. After the trial, the DCGI would consider approving the mixing of vaccines and giving the same to the people in India
Meanwhile, so far, 18 people have received mixed vaccines at various centres of Uttar Pradesh by mistake. It is also noted, the study on the efficiency and immunity of the mixed vaccine conducted by the ICMR was based on these 18 people, who were administered two different doses unintentionally.
As of now, the private and government hospitals conducting COVID-19 vaccination drives are not allowed to administer mix and match vaccines.
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