Two doses of Covaxin, also known as BBV152, are 50 per cent effective against the symptomatic disease as per the first real-world assessment of India’s indigenous vaccine against the deadly infection, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
The number is significantly lower than the 77.8 per cent efficacy that Bharat Biotech, manufacturer of the Covaxin, had claimed on the basis of the interim phase 3 trial results of the vaccine. It was released earlier in November.
The latest study published in The Lancet assessed 2,714 hospital workers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, from April 15-May 15, who were symptomatic and underwent RT-PCR test for Covid-19 detection.
Researchers noted that the Delta variant was the dominant strain in India during the study period, accounting for approximately 80 per cent of all confirmed Covid-19 cases.
Covaxin, developed by the Hyderabad-based pharma firm in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology, Indian Council of Medical Research (NIV-ICMR), Pune, is an inactivated whole virus vaccine administered in a two-dose regimen, 28 days apart.
