Amid the advancement of COVID-19 vaccination drives across the globe, the confusion and rumours around the efficacy of the vaccines are still rising. People are trying to find answers to their questions like – ”When do they become immune to the virus?”, ”How long does the immunity last?” and many more.
Well, these confusions exist because people tend to believe every rumour they come across, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) has appealed multiple times to only trust the authentic sources about the information related to Coronavirus.
One of the most prevalent confusions around the Coronavirus vaccines these days is how long should a person wait to get the vaccine after getting infected.
Some of the researchers have recently claimed that a person can take the COVID-19 vaccine right after recovering from the disease but only if they do not have any symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, suggests waiting for 90 days from the day you test positive for COVID-19 disease if you haven’t received any shot yet.
The CDC also suggests, people who got infected after receiving their first shot may take the second dose on their scheduled date, but only if their quarantine period is over and they do not have any symptoms.
The CDC has also clarified that if you have had COVID-19 and now you have recovered, you must be having some natural protection against the virus, but it is still unclear how long that immunity is going to last.
COVID-19 vaccination helps protect you by creating an antibody response without you having to experience potentially severe illness or post-COVID conditions. Vaccination can be taken safely post 90 days of successful recovery from COVID.
Dr. M.G. Kartheeka, MBBS, MD
The CDC has suggested not to take the vaccine for at least 90 days if you have undergone an antibody therapy for COVID-19.
Currently, India has vaccinated over 62.5 lakh healthcare workers and frontline workers. The authorities have confirmed that about 3.3 lakh people are being inoculated on a daily basis.
The authorities, however, have cautioned COVID-infected people not to get the vaccine if they have any symptoms of the disease. Moreover, long-haulers, people who have recovered from COVID-19 but still have some symptoms, should consult their physician before taking the shot.
There are plenty of myths that are discouraging people from showing up at the vaccination centres, causing a huge blow to India’s fight against the Coronavirus. Here we have listed a few myths which CDC has described as completely baseless:
Many people around the country believe that those who are taking the vaccine shots are suffering from serious side effects. They agree that the people may suffer from some mild side effects, which are listed below:
More serious side-effects include:
With the kind of results India’s indigenous vaccines are fetching, people have started showing more interest in taking the shot for COVID-19. We, however, have to work together to stop the spread of misconceptions to eventually defeat the disease which had literally confined the world to their houses.
Let’s pledge not to forward any information related to the disease without cross-checking it with the official sources, like the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, WHO, CDC, etc.
Know your current health status.
Disclaimer: The information provided here is for educational/awareness purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical treatment by a healthcare professional and should not be relied upon to diagnose or treat any medical condition. The reader should consult a registered medical practitioner to determine the appropriateness of the information and before consuming any medication. PharmEasy does not provide any guarantee or warranty (express or implied) regarding the accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or usefulness of the information; and disclaims any liability arising thereof.
Links and product recommendations in the information provided here are advertisements of third-party products available on the website. PharmEasy does not make any representation on the accuracy or suitability of such products/services. Advertisements do not influence the editorial decisions or content. The information in this blog is subject to change without notice. The authors and administrators reserve the right to modify, add, or remove content without notification. It is your responsibility to review this disclaimer regularly for any changes.
In a bid to finally get rid of the menace of COVID-19 disease, central and state governments in India are all geared up to begin the cross-nation vaccination drive, probably the most pervasive one in the history of Indian healthcare.
The vaccination drive began on January 13, 2021. People in India are still puzzled about the procedure they have to follow to get the much-awaited vaccine shot.
Well, worry no more, as the government has released an eight-step guide for the distribution of the life-saving shots.
Did you know?
Step 1 – Registration: Every person who is willing to get the vaccine is supposed to register himself/herself (as the beneficiary) on the Co-WIN system using photo identity proof. It is worth mentioning that Co-WIN is an app developed by the central government to maintain flawless data, and execute the vaccination drive transparently.
Step 2 – Vaccination details: Once the registration is complete, the beneficiary will receive SMS on his/her registered cellphone number.
Step 3 – Vaccination Officer No 1 (VO-1): The government has appointed a few Vaccination Officers to help the beneficiaries go through the vaccination process with ease at the site. The VO-1 will pre-check the registration and photo ID proof of the beneficiary, and also assist in managing the queues and crowd at the site. These officers are originally policemen, home guards, civil defense personnel, NCC, NSS or NYK members.
Step 4 – Verification Officer No 2 (VO-2): The VO-2 will cross verify and authenticate the beneficiaries’ documents on Co-WIN.
Step 5 – Vaccination Officer No 3 (VO-3): This officer will be a healthcare practitioner who will administer the vaccine to the beneficiary.
Step 6 – Waiting time: Once the vaccine is administered, the beneficiary will be asked to wait in the “observation area” for 30 minutes to keep a check on any kind of minor to major side-effects.
Step 7 – Monitoring of observation area: The government has appointed Vaccination Officer No 4 and 5 to ensure 30 minute wait time for every beneficiary. They will also guide the non-registered beneficiaries at the site.
Step 8 – Second dose: As specified in the SMS received after the first dose of vaccine, the beneficiaries will have to come for the second dose on the due date to ensure complete protection against COVID-19.
Preventing serious illnesses, hospitalizations and chances of death are some of the advantages of covid-19 vaccination in an individual, especially in patients who have multiple comorbidities.
Dr. Ashish Bajaj, M.B.B.S., M.D
As of now, the Co-WIN system is not live on Android or iOS platforms. It is still in the pre-product stage. However, the government has ensured to upload on it the data of healthcare workers, who will be the first in line to get vaccinated. As per the government, about 75 lakh healthcare workers have already been registered on the app.
More importantly, if you have already downloaded or installed any app from Play Store or App Store with the name “Co-WIN”, it is not going to work, and may only have been created by some imposter to get access to your personal data. So, you should uninstall it immediately.
It may be recalled that the central government-appointed panel, the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration (NEGVAC), had recently released a priority list for the vaccine administration.
The panel suggested that healthcare workers (about 1 crore) will be the first to get the vaccine, followed by frontline workers (2 crores) and people above the age of 50 years (about 27 crores). The panel also confirmed that people with associated comorbidities will also get the vaccine in the first phase.
Well, it seems like the government has prepared a full-proof plan to execute this massive drive efficiently. Still, it is not going to be a difficult situation given the huge population of our country. Hence, as the responsible citizens of the country, we must abide by the rules set by our government, and should not show any haste in getting the vaccination.
As India has finally successfully developed its own vaccine to overcome the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, everyone is wondering when they would get a shot of it, which most probably may restore the actual “normalcy” in their life.
Well, an expert panel with the government’s health ministry, the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration (NEGVAC), has come up with a prioritisation list to identify the most vulnerable populations in an effort to reduce the mortality rate and burden on the healthcare system.
As every one of you was already guessing, healthcare workers (HCWs) are the first in line to get the vaccine. It means, doctors, nurses, every worker in the healthcare setup, will be the first to get the vaccines. As per the NEGVAC, there are about 1 crore HCWs across the country.
The second slot in the priority list is reserved for frontline workers (FLWs), who include state and central police department cops, home guard, armed forces and civil defence organizations, including municipal workers and disaster management volunteers. The overall population of FLWs in the country is about two crores.
After covering these two groups, the expert panel has finalized a prioritized age group, which covers people above 50 years of age, and those below 50 years of age having associated comorbidities. As per the data collected by the expert panel, the population of such people is about 27 crore in India.
The age group of above 50 years has been subdivided into two parts – first of those above 60 years, and then of the people between 50 and 60 years. This bifurcation has been done for purposes of the phasing of roll out based on pandemic situation and vaccine availability.
Once the priority groups are covered, the remaining population will be vaccinated based on the disease epidemiology and vaccine availability.
The expert panel is referring to the latest electoral roll of Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to figure out the eligible candidates for the vaccinations. The age will be calculated as of January 1, 2021. So, those who were born on or before January 1, 1971, will fall under the category to be vaccinated as per the priority list.
Moreover, the government has already started collecting data on healthcare workers across the states, union territories, and central ministries. The collected data is being uploaded on CO-WIN software, a digital platform for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine delivery and it will be verified at multiple levels before beginning the vaccination process.
The beneficiaries are required to register on the CO-WIN software beforehand in order to avail the vaccine. The government hasn’t set any provision for on-the-spot registration for any candidate.
The central government of India has confirmed that they currently have 2.39 lakh vaccinators (Auxiliary Nurse Midwife-ANM), of whom only 1.54 lakh will be used to administer the COVID-19 vaccine shots. The aim of not using all of them is to minimize the effect on routine healthcare services across the country, including routine immunization.
The government has claimed that the current cold chain has the capacity of storing vaccines for the first three crore health workers across the country.
Over and above this, the government also confirmed that the plan and infrastructure are ready to kick start massive production of COVID-19 vaccines as soon as the scientists and researchers give a green signal.
Three major firms i.e. Serum Institute of India, Pfizer Inc and Bharat Biotech have applied for Emergency Use Approval in the last few days. The regulatory framework of the country has a specific provision for granting the emergency use authorization. Emergency use approval of the COVID-19 vaccines will be granted after sufficient evidence regarding their safety and effectiveness.
The NEGVAC has prepared a detailed and authentic plan for rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine, and the people, who do not fall in the selected categories for phase 1 rollout, should not panic. The panel surely has a plan in place for covering the remaining population of the country in the months to come.
Disclaimer: The information provided here is for educational/awareness purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical treatment by a healthcare professional and should not be relied upon to diagnose or treat any medical condition. The reader should consult a registered medical practitioner to determine the appropriateness of the information and before consuming any medication. PharmEasy does not provide any guarantee or warranty (express or implied) regarding the accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or usefulness of the information; and disclaims any liability arising thereof.
Links and product recommendations in the information provided here are advertisements of third-party products available on the website. PharmEasy does not make any representation on the accuracy or suitability of such products/services. Advertisements do not influence the editorial decisions or content. The information in this blog is subject to change without notice. The authors and administrators reserve the right to modify, add, or remove content without notification. It is your responsibility to review this disclaimer regularly for any changes.
Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine is co-developed by a biotechnology company – Moderna, Inc (Cambridge, Massachusetts.US) & the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
It works by incorporating coronavirus’s genetic code into the human body. This leads to the generation of viral proteins, but not the whole virus, which is enough to train the immune system to attack. This would teach the body to make COVID-19 antibodies and develop another part of the immune system called T-cells to fight the coronavirus. This is one of the novel techniques of inserting RNA into human cells.
Moderna conducted a clinical trial involving 30,000 people in the US with half being given two doses of the coronavirus vaccine in a four-week gap & the rest had dummy injections. The analysis was based on the result of the first 95 volunteers to develop COVID-19 symptoms.
What was observed, was only five people tested positive for COVID-19 had been given the covid vaccine. The rest 90 were in those given the dummy treatment. The company thus concluded that the coronavirus vaccine 94.5% effective.
It also gave news of relief by confirming that there are no significant safety concerns. The basic side effects after administration of the covid 19 vaccine included short-lived fatigue, headache and pain.
Researchers are still studying the longevity of immunity for the volunteers who were administered the vaccine.
The preliminary data show very similar protection data which is around 90% for Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and around 95% for Moderna vaccine. Since both the vaccines have the same mechanism of injecting part of the virus’s genetic code in order to provoke an immune response, we will have to wait for the final numbers in terms of safety & efficacy.
However, logistically Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine appears to be easier to store as it remains stable at minus 20’C for up to six months and can be kept in a standard fridge for up to a month. On the contrary, Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine needs ultra-cold storage at around minus 75’C & it needs to be kept in the fridge for five days before administration. This gives an additional operational edge to Moderna over the Pfizer vaccine.
The Indian government is in negotiation terms with both domestic and international vaccine makers such as Moderna, Pfizer, Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila for their Covid-19 vaccine.
Few Indian institutions such as Hyderabad-based Indian Immunologicals (IIL) are all geared up for a manufacturing collaboration with Moderna. The Indian government has also kept this possibility open with Moderna. They have also requested for direct purchase of the coronavirus vaccine and later internal distribution.
Global demand for covid 19 vaccines is expected to far exceed supplies despite significant efforts to increase the production ahead of time. Moderna has already signed a deal to supply 100 million doses to the U.S. and 80 million to the European Union. Other countries such as U.K & India are still in the negotiating phase.
This news from Moderna is very exciting & boosts optimism among people. This coronavirus vaccine news has definitely brought back hope in people across the world. But as responsible citizens, let’s aim to follow other precautionary measures till this vaccine finally comes to the market.
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