After the approval of the proposal for a study on the mixing of two COVID-19 vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin by Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI), the Chairman of Serum Institute of India, Cyrus Poonawalla indicated the mixing of the vaccines to be risky on Friday. He said, “I am against the mixing of vaccines. If mixing is done and results are not good then vaccine manufacturers will blame each other for results. First of all, the vaccine authority will never give full approval because it is a very risky decision and it is a waste of time. When one vaccine is working why should we mix it up and cause complications? We should completely discourage this.”
“Normally the second dose must be taken between two to three months period. When the product is not available, the government finds a solution that the second dose must be given after three months. There should be only a two months gap between both doses,” Poonawalla added.
However, the Indian Institute of Medical Research (ICMR) had released a report showing the mixing of two vaccines Covishield and Covaxin can be more beneficial, followed by a study. The study involved 98 people, 18 of whom had mistakenly received Covishield as the first dose and Covaxin as the second in Uttar Pradesh. It showed that combining these two COVID-19 vaccines proved to generate better immunogenicity than two doses of the same vaccine.
