Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman of the Serum Institute of India, says mixing of COVID-19 vaccines both Covishield and Covaxin is “wrong”.
“I think it is very wrong in mixing of the vaccines and you can quote me,” Poonawalla said, reported The Economic Times.
Such a mixing is not at all proven in field trials, he added while speaking at at the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth in Pune.
The Pune-based institute is the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume.
This comment comes days after the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approved a proposal to conduct a study on mixing Covaxin and Covishield vaccines in India. The study, involving 300 health individuals, will be carried out by Christian Medical College, Vellore.
The purpose of this study is to assess whether a person can be given two different vaccine shots — one each of Covishield and Covaxin — to complete the vaccination course.
“If anything misfires, Serum will say that the other vaccine is not good and they (the other vaccine company) will blame us claiming there was an issue with our vaccine. I think, it is very wrong to mix the vaccines and you can quote me,” the report quoted Cyrus Poonawalla as saying.
He was speaking at the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth in Pune.
In a statement, Cyrus Poonawalla later clarified his stand saying, “To clarify earlier statement: For those who have been administered the first dose of a particular vaccine and in case of the unavailability of the second dose of the same, as an alternative, another vaccine can be administered. That said, the efficacy and the immunogenicity of the combination are dependent on the ongoing studies conducted by regulators.”
As per a recent ICMR study, 18 people in Uttar Pradesh who had an inadvertent mix-up of doses ended up showing “better immunogenicity than two doses of the same vaccine”.
In the same study, it was also discovered that a combination of Covishield and Covaxin was safe, and that the adverse effects too were similar as a same-vaccine regimen.
Also read: DCGI gives nod for conducting study on mixing Covaxin, Covishield vaccines
