India's Covid Vaccination Coverage Excellent, But Immunity Provided Short-lived: Dr Rajeev Jayadevan

The country is once again seeing a rise in Covid cases, which has left some people wondering how effective are vaccines, the primary, secondary, and precaution doses. According to Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman of the National IMA COVID Task Force, India’s vaccination coverage is excellent, but the immunity provided is short-lived.

“Vaccination coverage in India is excellent. In addition, most individuals have additional immune memory from surviving natural infection, sometimes on multiple occasions. This provides good protection from severe disease among those who get infected. This category of protection is long-term and durable. However, the immunity provided is short-lived,” said Dr Jayadevan.

He further stated that even after taking vaccines, people get positive.

“Unfortunately the immunity provided by vaccination or natural infection against infection is short-lived, which is why repeat infections keep occurring, especially when we let our guard down and newer versions of the virus, like XBB.1.16 appear,” he said.

The vaccines are effective but only to reduce the severity of the infection and not to stop it from happening, said Dr Jayadevan. He also underscored that the situation is not worrisome at the moment. The XBB.1.16 variant is not pathogenic to lungs, unlike other variants such as omicron and delta, but it is highly transmissible. The positivity rates in Delhi and Kerala are not worrisome until the cases are not cluster cases or people in large parts of one area are getting infected; this will lead to hospitals being overburdened, he said.

Dr Jayadevan added, “The IMA did a study where 30% of participants who had taken a third dose also got infected in the third wave, but they also used N95 masks, compared to 45% who did not receive a 3rd dose (groups cannot be directly compared as this was not a randomised study, but shows that a booster dose does not necessarily stop a wave).”

Though the immunity is short-lived, Dr Jayadevan highlighted the importance of vaccination. “For someone who is unvaccinated with this subvariant, it could lead to pneumonia in the person…Hence, it becomes important for individuals to get themselves vaccinated,” he said.

India’s active Covid caseload currently stands at 37,093. In the past 24 hours, 5,676 new cases were recorded in the country.

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