Disclaimer: 1. We are not medical experts and all data / information is picked or referred by reliable public channels and are marked accordingly. 2. We have got ourselves vaccinated.
Note: This is an important post and we recommend everyone to read till the end.
The county has gone on the vaccination drive as the corona -19 pandemic has striked the country again more or less with the same intensity as the previous if not more. With the PM addressing the nation again yesterday i.e 20th April 2021 many of the detractors of him would have taken a back seat as there was criticism of the PM being too involved with Bengal elections and ignoring CoronaVirus. We think that the attention of the government has again fully focused on the pandemic and to handle it in the most efficient manner.
At present the government , as the PM said yesterday would not like to impose lockdown to the extent possible and would use it only as a last resort. This was important as the supply chain distraction that happened during the first wave of the virus is still not restored in many sectors especially the auto , where the delivery of cars and bikes are pending for months. Besides the delicate issue of immigration of laborers , street vendors, auto and taxi looms large on the horizon.
The government is also trying to ramp up hospital and medical facilities with oxygen, Remdevisir and other supplies of other life saving critical medicines.. MPs like Kailash Vijayvargiya have gone a whole hog by taking meetings in Indore of all district admin , and calling Reliance , Mylan and other industrialists to increase the quota for Indore of the same. That said, there is still serious availability of critical life saving injections, oxygen, beds in the country with social media flooded with suh messages for help. Besides Remdevisir , ITOLIZUMAB IS ANOTHER INJECTION that is missing from markets. INternational channels like BBC are transmitting bad reports on India’s covid crisis as if nothing is happening in other parts of the world.
Another important and rather the most important decision has been to increase the production of the vaccines with the finance ministry opening up the credit channel for the two major vaccine manufacturers of the country i.e. Bharat Biotech and Serum Inst. The first one produces Covexin while the second Covishied. After much deliberation we have ourselves taken Covishield as the private hospital where we have taken offered no choice. The Drug Controller General approved another viral vector vaccine, Sputnik V, developed by the Gamaleya Institute in Russia, for restricted use. The health ministry is also expected to approve yet another viral vector vaccine, AdV26 by Johnson & Johnson, in time. So India will soon be employing three viral vector vaccines in its large-scale COVID-19 vaccination drive, in which hundreds of million doses will be administered.
The reason for our heitation came from the various reports that have emerged for the Astrazeneca vaccine which serum inst is producing locally by the name covishield. As we know that the Astrazeneca vaccine has been responsible for blood clots in european countries (222 cases in 34 million after the first dose with 30 deaths) . There are adverse cases reported by Johnson and Johnson too. Though the cases being reported are very low to fit into statistical inferences, nonetheless they stand and cannot be ignored. Recently, in Israel, one news report claimed a sudden increase in the number of cardiac ailments, described as a “murky wave of heart attacks”, following mass administration of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
A team of doctors in Kerala conducted a survey among more than 5,000 healthcare workers in India over a week and found that 65.9% had at least one post-vaccination symptom. This reflects the high reactogenicity of the vaccines. In most cases, the symptom was related to the Covidshield vaccine. India’s National AEFI Committee had also recorded 180 post-vaccination deaths until March 31, 2021, and that three-fourths of the deaths had happened within three days of vaccination – most of them, again, after taking Covishield.
However, causality assessments are available only for 10 deaths in the public domain. Many of the AEFIs and deaths reported in India bear striking similarities to those recorded in the EU.
The United States based CDC has recently released its data. About 77 million people in the US are fll vaccinated against coronavirus; Out of which 5800 people were infected with corona , 74 died eventually and 396 have to be hospitalised.
Pfizer / BioNTech ‘s vaccine was 95% effective in preventing symptomatic disease in clinical trials and the company has claimed a success rate of 91 % in real life cases. Moderna was 94 % effective in trials and 90% in real cases. JJ was 66 % in trials while 72% in real life.
Another important finding was 40% of all infected were above 60 yrs of age. [1]
Case 1:
During the phase 3 trials of both the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, there were reports of serious AEFIs – multiple sclerosis and transverse myelitis – after their respective administrators temporarily paused these trials. There was also a case of transverse myelitis in India during Covishield’s bridging trial. These were early warning signals. However, the researchers who analysed these events ultimately deemed them to be unrelated to the vaccine. All thee vaccines Astrazeneca , Sputnik and Johnson and Johnson are vector vaccines while other two Pfizer, Moderna are mRNA.
The AstraZeneca vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus; the Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses human adenovirus 26; Sputnik V uses two different human adenoviruses: 26 for the priming dose and 5 for the booster dose. Adenoviruses are one of the most genetically diverse DNA viruses and cause non-life-threatening infections in a diverse range of hosts. They can also reach the central nervous system and cause neurological ailments. Adenoviruses are known to bring disorders but conclusive research is still not available.
High dose of viral vector – Adenoviruses are known to induce robust innate immune responses in their hosts. But a major drawback of the use of adenoviruses is the induction of an undesirable innate immune response. The dose of vectors used in these vaccines is also very high, around 1010 viral particles. These two factors together explain the high reactogenicity that these vaccines can evoke.
The Sputnik V vaccine, in its phase 3 trial, reported a higher efficacy than the AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and CanSino vaccines. (In its defence, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was tested in the latter half of last year’s pandemic in the countries where SARS-CoV-2 variants were surging.) The Russians’ technique of using different adenovirus vectors for the priming and boosting doses was clever. This strategy seems to be effective in circumventing preexisting immunity against adenovirus vectors.
The reports of sudden deaths in many vaccines in India and blood-clotting disorders associated with the administration of AstraZeneca shot in many countries suggested the probable role of a vaccine-induced immune mechanism. We recommend a very good article on the subject to be read by everyone [1.A].
The administration of mRNA vaccines’ doses have also been associated with serious AEFIs, including deaths in a few European countries like Norway and Germany, and the US. And once again, there is little data about Sputnik V in the public domain that could aid an independent analysis.
Case 2:-
There is one another video on Youtube [2] where one Dr Professor Ajay Gupta has made some interesting and yet serious points. Dr Ajay Gupta is a senior professor at LNJP Lucknow and looks after covid -19. He has not taken any vaccine nor his immediate family. While raising doubts over the vaccination, he however stops with that. But he brings one interesting case study for attention. The QGT test for TB that he has conducted over 6o patients has shown some data that cannot be ignored. It can be used for Coronavirus testing as per Dr Gupta and needs more research. We request the health ministry to look into it asap.
Case 3:
The third case which is by and large going forth is the efficacy of vaccines and general recommendation by doctors to get vaccinated [5]
Conclusion:
First and foremost govt has to make available drugs and injections, oxygen and beds available for patients. WE are getting a very bad name for the same and the citizens are in a foul mood. This may lead to further chaos if not controlled immediately.
While the government is right in administering vaccines it also needs to take a pause and think of alternate studies and solutions. The study by Prof Ajay Gupta of LNJP needs further research. The blind administration of vaccines esp the covishield is risky. We have to think of various possibilities and consider all options. These vaccines esp Covishied have not been totally tested and results are coming with newer reports. There are many people who are reluctant to take Astrazeneca [3] [4]. The government cannot be blind to all such things.
The government has to collect all data and all the citizens who have taken the first and or second dose must be contacted and collect feedback of any problem arising after the jab. This will be really helpful.
One another solution would be to lower the dose power so that any harmful effect or disorder is controlled.Scientific studies prove that this is possible.
Also certain classes of citizens with pre existing issues are more prone towards the vaccine. Is it possible to filter out such cases so that any disorder or death is curtailed.
Like CDC of the US, the government has to develop a national covid 19 vaccine database where investigators and doctors / hospitals can enter, store and manage data for cases in their areas.
The government has to work upon all these strategies and work out solutions in the larger interest of the nation and citizens. While the government is doing all right things it has to proceed with due care also. This coron virus thing is not all that simple and innocent as it seems to be as a disease or as a medical treatment.
1.https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/14/health/breakthrough-infections-covid-vaccines-cdc/index.html
1.A: https://science.thewire.in/health/covishield-what-we-need-to-know-to-understand-the-safety-of-viral-vector-vaccines/
- https://youtu.be/kmL36aBZous
- https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/i-dont-want-that-france-struggles-pitch-astrazeneca-vaccine-2021-04-19/
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/15/which-countries-have-halted-use-of-astrazenecas-covid-vaccine
- https://youtu.be/YWhc6K3x6B8
Asheesh Shah
Samanvaya.
