Mix of Covishield, Covaxin yields better results, finds ICMR Study

A study by ICMR involving 98 people, 18 of whom had inadvertently received Covishield as first dose and Covaxin as the second, showed that combining these two COVID-19 vaccines produced better immunogenicity than two doses of the same vaccine, as reported The Economic Times on Sunday.

The study also included 40 recipients of two doses of Covishield and 40 recipients of two doses of Covaxin.

Immunisation with the combination was safe and the adverse effects were also found to be similar when compared with the same dose regimen.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which reports the effects of heterologous prime-boost vaccination with an adenovirus vectored vaccine followed by an inactivated whole virus vaccine," the researchers said.

"Immunogenicity profile against Alpha, Beta and Delta variants in the heterologous group was superior and IgG antibody and neutralising antibody response of the participants was also significantly higher compared to that in the homologous groups," the study stated.

However, to conclusively prove these findings a multicentre randomised controlled trial needs to be carried out, the study underlined.