The AIIMS Delhi carried out a study on 63 patients who had whole or partial reinfections following immunization. While no deaths have been recorded, the study discovered that the Delta variation is the most common in reinfection instances.
According to separate investigations by AIIMS (Delhi) and the National Centre for Disease Control, the ‘delta’ variation of COVID-19 – the type first found in India in October last year – is capable of infecting patients even after they have taken both doses of the Covaxin or Covishield vaccinations (NCDC).
Experts have stated that vaccination is not a guarantee against Covid-19 infection and that it will only prevent the infection from becoming severe, but a preparatory study was conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi has asserted the same since conducting a similar study on 63 people.
There are a total of 63 persons in this group. 35 people received both vaccination doses, whereas 27 people received only one dose. All of them developed groundbreaking infections (infections after immunization), and the Delta variation — the variation previously described in India — predominated among the genome sequenced samples.
A few details about the study carried out:
1. A total of 36 samples were sequenced out of a total of 63. One dosage was finished by 19 of them, while the other 17 received both doses.
2. The Delta variation (B.1.617.2) was discovered in 23 of the 36 samples.
3. Covishield was given to 18 patients, whereas Covaxin was given to 53 others.
4. The patients were 37 years old on average (21-92), with 41 men and 22 women, according to AIIMS.
5. It’s worth noting that AIIMS previously said that no one died in this group, implying that immunization reduced morbidity.
“Reinfections and vaccine breakthrough infections are uncommon, but genomic sequencing of vaccine breakthrough infections can reveal important information. The variants of concern B.1.617.2 and B.1.1.7 comprised the majority of the vaccine breakthrough infections investigated using genome sequencing, closely overlapping and emulating the Covid-19 cases in the state of Delhi, but the proportions were not significantly different in comparison to the population pervasiveness of the variants during this period with high community transmission”, said the research thus done.
The AIIMS-IGIB and NCDC-IGIB investigations, on the other hand, appear to contradict a collaborative investigation by the National Institute of Virology in Pune, the Indian Council of Medical Research, and Covaxin maker Bharat Biotech. Covaxin gives protection against both the ‘delta’ and ‘beta’ versions, according to that study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed. South Africa was the first place where the ‘beta’ variety was identified.
The ‘delta’ variation was found to be responsible for the second Covid wave in India, according to a government investigation conducted by experts from the NCDC and the Indian SARS COV2 Genomic Consortia this week. Over four lakh new cases were recorded per day during the peak of the wave, which occurred in early May.
