Covishield Or Covaxin? Study Reveals Which Vaccine Offers Better Protection Against COVID-19

The first-of-its-kind study, comparing the effectiveness of the two most widely used COVID-19 vaccines in India has revealed that Serum Institute of India's Covishield offered better protection against SARS-CoV-2 than Bharat Biotech's Covaxin.

According to a study by a consortium of 11 institutions led by scientists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, Covishield produced higher levels of antibodies against various SARS-CoV-2 strains than Covaxin.

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Covishield Or Covaxin?

Findings of the study titled, “Immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines BBV152 (COVAXIN) and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (COVISHIELD) in seronegative and seropositive individuals in India: a multicentre, non-randomized observational study” was published in the journal, The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia.

For the study, scientists tracked immune responses in 691 volunteers aged between 18 and 45 years from June 2021 to January 2022 before and after they received the vaccines.

Higher antibody response

They found Covishield elicited higher antibody responses than Covaxin — 98.3 per cent compared with 74.4 per cent in people not exposed to the coronavirus, and 91.7 per cent compared with 66.9 per cent in people who already had antibodies from prior coronavirus exposure.

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Response against new strains?

They also found that Covishield recipients consistently exhibited higher levels of antibodies than Covaxin recipients against the delta and omicron strains of the virus that had fuelled the country’s second and third COVID-19 waves.

“Covishield also elicited stronger CD4 and CD8 T cell responses in the earliest cohort used to track T cell responses, whereas Covaxin induced only CD4 T cell responses against spike protein in seronegative participants. Neither vaccine significantly enhanced T cell responses in seropositive participants,” the study said.

Reuters

“These results will have important implications for future immunisation strategies, at least against Covid-19,” said Satyajit Major, a scientist who led the study.

Pune-based SII manufactured and marked the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca as Covishield in India, while Covaxin was developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.

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