A man in the Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh was allegedly given shots of two different Covid vaccines. “I was given one dose of Covaxin and the other of Covishield,” he said.
The man, Umesh, works as a driver for the Chief Development Officer (CDO), Maharajganj, Gaurav Singh Sogarwal.
Three people who work as drivers for CDO — Chandan Kushwaha, Umesh and Ardali Madan — went to a district hospital to get the second dose of vaccine.
Umesh, who had taken Covaxin shots for the first dose, was given Covishield vaccine instead of Covaxin. The other two – Chandan and Ardali — were not given the second dose after the incident came to light.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) AK Srivastava explained that no side effect has been seen due to the mixup. “However, this incident should not have happened and all the health workers have been instructed to give second dose of the same vaccine [beneficiaries were] administered before,” he added.
The event was reported at a time when trials are going on to determine whether the mixing of vaccines could benefit patients. Several reports suggest that a different second dose could help build better immunity against the virus.
Recently, a study evaluating the benefits of mixing and matching coronavirus vaccines has been extended to include the Moderna and Novavax jabs, news agency PTI reported. The Com-Cov study, led by the University of Oxford, has been studying the immune responses of volunteers given a dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine followed by the Pfizer jab, and vice versa, since February.
Researchers will be looking for adverse reactions and the immune system responses to these new combinations of vaccines. The trial is not designed to show if the vaccines are effective at preventing disease and the University of Oxford has said the intent of the study is to show that mixing is not substantially worse than not mixing.
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