New Delhi: Vaccines that aim to curb COVID-19 deaths and hospitalisation in patients substantially including people infected by the highly transmissible delta variant that made India’s second wave devastating and is now attempting curbs from Los Angeles to Melbourne.
According to a new study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) researchers led by Nivedita Gupta, about 0.4 per cent lost their lives after getting infected post-vaccination and nearly 10 per cent required hospitalisation.
The study analyzed genome sequencing data of 677 COVID patients and found that 86 per cent of the fully-inoculated cases were due to the delta variant, reported Bloomberg.
“This clearly suggests that vaccination reduces severity of disease, hospitalization and mortality,” the study said.
“Therefore, enhancing the vaccination drive and immunizing the populations quickly would be the most important strategy to prevent further deadly waves of the Covid-19 and would reduce the burden on the health care system,” the study further revealed.
The study — still to be peer-reviewed — found 592 people had taken both the jabs while 85 had only one jab. India has used AstraZeneca Plc’s Covishield, a traditional vector-based vaccine whose efficacy against the delta variant is under scanner compared to the highly effective messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc.
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