A recent study by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) claimed that two doses of COVID19 vaccines, irrespective of Covishield or Covaxin, were successful in preventing 95 per cent deaths due to coronavirus during the second wave of the pandemic in the country.
This was announced by VK Paul, member (Health), NITI Aayog yesterday on July 16 in a press briefing. He shared the findings of the study conducted by ICMR among over 117,000 police personnel in Tamil Nadu. The group was identified to be at high risk of infection.
The study that analysed the vaccine effectiveness in police personnel was conducted during the peak of the second wave of the pandemic, which was driven largely by the Delta variant.
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Of the total 1,17,524 police personnel in Tamil Nadu, 17,059 received no vaccine. As many as 32,792 police personnel received only one dose, and 67,673 people were administered both doses.
Twenty deaths were reported among the group which did not receive the vaccine. Seven and four deaths were reported in the groups which received only one dose (half vaccinated) and both the doses (fully vaccinated), respectively.
“If we examine the findings, we see that one dose gave 82 per cent protection from death while two doses gave 95 per cent protection from death. This study was done on a high-risk population at a time when the pandemic was at its peak. And we all know that Delta was driving the peak of the second wave,” said Paul.
Paul also informed that for those fully vaccinated with two doses of COVID19, the death rate was 0.06 per 1,000 people.
So far, over 399 million doses have been administered in the country.
