Could a blend of COVID’19 vaccines be safe?

India doesn’t have enough Covid’19 vaccine doses to vaccinate the whole country. There are insufficient vaccines to distribute within cities, across the nation, and across age groups. The deficiency of Covid’19 vaccine doses have left many wondering whether they can mix and match two different vaccines - Covishield and Covaxin in India.

As the Covid’19 cases high and people race to vaccination the center’s to get their dosage, another report has called for ensuring caution stating that people who got blinded doses of the Covid’19 vaccine appear to be more likely to experience gentle or serious reaction. These impacts could go from fever, chills to migraines.

As countries face a deficiency of the Covid’19 vaccine because of unexpected pressure on companies to increase production, people are mixing vaccines dependent on their availability getting an alternate vaccine as a second dose than the first one.

 

EXPERT OPINION

• Dr. Faheem Younus's post on his Twitter on May 20, the head of infectious disease at the American University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health (UM UCH), managed this issue.

 

He wrote, "Q: Can I take Pfizer/Astra Zeneca/JJ after getting vaccinated with Covaxin or Sinopharm etc? Would I mix and match vaccines?"

 

"As of today, I'd say no. It's being examined. Besides rare exceptions don't mix. This WILL change. Wait 2-3 months instead of taking a blind risk (sic)," he replied.

• Niti Aayog member Dr. VK Paul Saturday on being asked if a person can be immunized with two different vaccines said scientifically and theoretically it is possible however suggesting this is an involving situation and only time will tell. 

"Only time will tell whether it will be done in future or not, it will depend on international studies, World Health Organization findings etc. Our experts are also continuously studying,"

 

WHO IS TESTING THE MIX-AND-MATCH THEORY?

While trying to make more flexible COVID-19 vaccination programs, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) is exploring to find the effectiveness of combining two different vaccines.

It’s known as the Com-COV study, and it’s raising important questions, like whether this can increase or decrease vaccine effectiveness.

 

HOW DOES THE Com-COV TRIAL WORK?

According to the NHS, the purpose behind this 13-month trial is to see how well people’s immune systems react once they are “prepared” with one type of vaccine and then boosted with another.

Researchers want to see how solid the immune system response is when the second dose is separated from the first dose by different amounts of time.

Researchers will likewise utilize blood tests from trial volunteers to monitor the impact of various dosing regimens on participants’ immune system responses, and look for any extra adverse reactions to these mixes of vaccines.

The two vaccines utilized for this study are from AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech.

However, the NHS added that “if more vaccines are approved for use in the U.K. after this examination begins, they might be added to the trial.”