India's drug regulator approves study on mixing Covaxin, Covishield vaccine doses

New Delhi: The Drugs Controller General of India on Wednesday approved for conducting a study on mixing Covaxin and Covishield doses. This study and its clinical trials will be conducted by Christian Medical College, Vellore.

Drugs Controller General of India gives nod for conducting a study on mixing Covaxin & Covishield. pic.twitter.com/twudwqBAXu

— ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2021

Earlier, on August 8 the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that the study on mixing and matching of two COVID vaccines, namely Covaxin and Covishield, shows better results. “Study on mixing & matching of COVID vaccines, Covaxin & Covishield shows better result,” ICMR had said in a tweet.

The ICMR study involved 98 people, 18 of whom had inadvertently received Covishield as the first dose and Covaxin as the second in Uttar Pradesh. The study revealled that the combination of these two COVID-19 vaccines elicited better immunogenicity than two doses of the same vaccine.

The study also found that immunisation with combination of Covishield and Covaxin was safe and the adverse effects were also found to be similar when compared to the same dose regimen.

While, the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) claimed that the purpose of the research study is to evaluate if an individual can be administered two different COVID-19 vaccine shots, one each of Covishield and Covaxin and study its effect.