‘It Is Absolutely Okay If You Got Two Different Doses’

Dr VK Paul, India’s top Covid-19 adviser said that it is advised and suggested if recipients stick to the same dose of vaccine as the first one. However, he added that it is absolutely okay even if people have got different jabs, assuring that there is no cause for concern. But that does not mean one should disobey the protocol of administering same doses of vaccinations.

Of late, Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar district has 20 villagers administered a dose of Covaxin after the first dose of Covishield. Soon after, the fear-mongering state was observed among locals due to the believed impending danger, or simply say most-talked side effects.

“Two different doses are safe. We are thinking to mix and match (vaccine doses) on a trial basis,” the doctor added. Earlier this year, UK studies said that it is actually good to believe that the Oxford vaccine may work better when paired with another, rather than being given as two doses of the one vaccine.

And that is because the Oxford vaccine uses an inactivated adenovirus to carry the DNA into human cells. But the immune system will react to the adenovirus and produce antibodies. When the second dose is given these antibodies will attack the adenovirus and reduce the number of human cells that will produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

Also, there have been some plausible guesses among people like mixing the vaccines would likely have slight advantages over two doses of the same vaccine, since they may well have slightly different paths to immunity and mixing gives both. But this is only a guess because nobody knows.

The recent incident in Siddharthnagar district’s Badhni Primary Health Care Centre where around 20 people were given different vaccinations have once again triggered the fear. These 20 people were given Covishiled as their first dose of vaccine but on May 14 they were administered a second dose and were inoculated with Covaxin by the health workers. However, it is a sigh of relief to learn that all these 20 people are doing absolutely fine at the moment.

Speaking to media, CMO Siddharthnagar, Sandeep Chaudhary said, “There are no such guidelines from the government of India on any kind of ‘cocktail’ of vaccines and hence this is a matter of negligence. The person who is getting the first dose of a particular vaccine should get the second dose of the same vaccine as well. An enquiry was ordered in this case and our senior officers went to the spot and conducted an enquiry.”