On June 18, Professor Andrew Pollard, the chief investigator of the AstraZeneca vaccine clinical trials said that the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine significantly increases in the second and third months after taking the dose.
AstraZeneca on Friday backed the idea of keeping a 12-16 weeks gap between the two doses of its vaccine. Andrew Pollard, who is also the Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said, "An immunisation policy that aims to vaccinate the largest number of people in the quickest possible time with at least one dose makes sense in the present circumstances in India."
In other words, the immunisation policy in Britain and India should not be compared because of the different circumstances in the two countries.
The researchers and scientists of Oxford Vaccine Group stated that India, being a vast country with a huge population, most of which is unvaccinated when the deadly Delta variant is present, is "a widely spreading and increasing threat."
Notably, India has administered over 27 crore doses of the COVID-19 vaccine so far.
Andrew Pollard, Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity, Oxford University, UK, also noted that AstraZeneca is not working on a single-dose vaccine. He said, "Two doses are needed. One may be good but the second is needed to boost protection."
Pollard said, "In a situation of vaccine shortage, it makes sense to ensure a measure of protection for the widest number of people rather than provide a better level of protection for a smaller number of people."
The scientist explained his point by stating that one dose of Covishield provides above 70 percent protection against serious illness and hospitalisation which has to be the main concern.
Referring to the question on how the United Kingdom reduced the gap between two doses just as India increased its, Pollard said, "UK government had decided to reduce the gap at a time when a substantial proportion of its population was already vaccinated."
The scientist stated, "In India, the converse is the case. The vast majority of people are unvaccinated and unprotected. Therefore, you need to ensure that as many as possible are protected against serious illness and hospitalisation, even if that means a large number will have lower levels of protection against symptomatic infection."
Pollard said another sensible reason for extending the gap in circumstances where the supply of vaccine is short is that the level of the protection provided by one dose of AstraZeneca significantly increases in the second and third months after the jab.
Meanwhile, India has reported over 60,000 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours.
