A study of 614 fully vaccinated medical examiners in India found a “significant” come by their COVID-fighting antibodies within four months of the primary shot. The findings could help the govt decide whether to supply booster doses as some Western countries have done.
Waning antibodies don’t necessarily mean that immunised people lose their ability to counter the disease, because the body’s memory cells should kick in to supply substantial protection, said the director of a state-run institute that did the study.
“After six months, we must always be able to tell you more clearly whether and when a booster would be needed,” Sanghamitra Pati of the Regional Medical Research Centre, based in Bhubaneswar, told Reuters on Tuesday. “And we might urge similar studies in several areas for pan-India data.”
British researchers said last month that protection offered by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and also the AstraZeneca vaccines begins to fade within six months.
The study, published within the Research Square pre-print platform but yet to be peer reviewed, is one in every of the primary such tired the country involving its main two vaccines – Covishield, a licensed version of the AstraZeneca shot, and domestically developed Covaxin.
Health officials say though they’re studying the evolving science on booster doses, the priority is to totally immunise India’s 944 million adults. over 60 per cent of them have received a minimum of one dose and 19 per cent the desired two doses.
Covid cases and deaths in India have come down sharply since a peak of quite 400,000 infections in early May. India has reported 33.29 million cases in total and 443,213 deaths.
