NITI Aayog member, Dr VK Paul, who is the govt's top Covid-19 adviser on Thursday said that recipients must stick to the same dose of vaccine as their first one. But, in case people have got different jabs, there is no cause for concern.
His clarification comes after reports that 20 villagers in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar district were administered a dose of Covaxin after the first dose of Covishield, triggering fear of side-effects among people. Dr Paul added that two different doses are safe and the govt is mulling a mix and match of vaccine doses on a trial basis.
Studies meanwhile are being conducted globally, to see the possible outcome of mixing doses of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. A trial on 600 participants showed that if Pfizer's mRNA vaccine is given as the second dose to beneficiaries who got AstraZeneca's shot as their first dose, it improved immune response significantly with mild side-effects.
Canada, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and South Korea have allowed the use of a different vaccine for the second dose for complete Covid-19 vaccination if the first dose was of AstraZeneca vaccine. The US has allowed mixing of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines asking the recipients to take the two shots with a gap of 28 days.