Days before India's vaccination drive is expected to begin, the federation of professional medical organisations, the Organised Medicine Academic Guild (OMAG), asserted that both Covishield and Covaxin are safe.
The vaccines made by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (Covishield) and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech (Covaxin) have been rolled out and the first phase of vaccination is set to kickstart on 16 January.
“Both these vaccines are safe. Don’t believe in any rumours and don’t be a party in creating or circulating any misgivings and rumours. If not, at best, be quiet,” OMAG president Dr S Natarajan and Secretary-General Ishwar Gilada said.
“Medicines are used in the treatment and may have some safety compromises, but vaccines being used for prevention of infections, there are no compromises in safety,” they added.
“In priority immunisation drive the Government-sponsored vaccines are used. You cannot choose between the available vaccines. Please take whatever is offered to you,” he added.
“Two doses of the same vaccines are must to get adequate immunogenicity and efficacy. You can afford to wait only if you have had either symptomatic or asymptomatic Covid-19 infection and still have IgG antibodies on Covid Antibody test,” he said.
“Getting vaccinated is an immunity and confidence-building measure for you. It will send a positive signal for the rest of the population, besides helping in nation-building. Whether or not vaccine is taken, Covid-appropriate behaviours will continue in 2021,” added Dr Gilada.
There are several vaccines undergoing human clinical trials in India and are in the pipeline for the CDSCO nod.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine whose phase II and III trial is being conducted by Dr Reddy’s, and locally developed Zydus-Cadila’s ZyCov-D will start its phase-III trial, Serum Institute’s second vaccine NovaVax is considered for a phase III trial, Biological-E and Gennova, d Pune’s mRNA based vaccine will begin phase I trials, and Bharat Biotech’s second nasal vaccine candidate will begin its trials.