Covaxin 50% Effective Against Delta Variant, Shows First Real-World Study

The study was conducted on 2,714 symptomatic hospital workers at AIIMS, New Delhi during the second wave.

Covaxin has been developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/TheQuint)

Two doses of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin provided 50 percent protection against symptomatic COVID-19 among healthcare workers during India's second wave earlier this year, a study published by The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal has shown, reported news agency PTI.

The study was conducted on 2,714 symptomatic hospital workers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi during the second wave, which provided the opportunity to analyse the effectiveness of Covaxin in the real-world.

In the period concerned, the delta variant was the dominant strain in India, accounting for nearly 80 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to PTI.

Of the 2,714 workers studied at AIIMS, 1,617 tested positive for COVID-19, while 1,097 tested negative, after undergoing RT-PCR tests 14 days or more after having received the second dose of Covaxin, the study said.

According to The Indian Express, a majority of the study subjects were tested during the first 20 days of the 30-day study, when COVID-19 test positivity rate had peaked in India.

Manish Soneja, Additional Professor of Medicine at AIIMS, New Delhi said that the hospital's study "offers a more complete picture of how BBV152 (Covaxin) performs in the field and should be considered in the context of COVID-19 surge conditions in India, combined with the possible immune evasive potential of the delta variant."

WHO Clears Covaxin for Emergency Use

Covaxin was cleared for emergency use in India for people aged 18 and above in January this year.

The Technical Advisory Group of the World Health Organization (WHO) had recommended Emergency Use Listing (EUL) status for Covaxin earlier in November.

The Technical Advisory Group, convened by WHO and made up of regulatory experts from around the world, determined that the Covaxin vaccine meets WHO standards for protection against COVID-19, that the benefit of the vaccine far outweighs risks and the vaccine can be used.

Recently, an efficacy analysis published in The Lancet had said that Covaxin was found to be 77.8 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19. Meanwhile, data from the phase III clinical trials demonstrated 65.2 percent efficacy of the vaccine against the delta variant.

(With inputs from PTI and The Indian Express.)