In a first-ever study in the world, India will come up with its finding on how effective the vaccines are against Delta Plus, Dr Balram Bhargava, the director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research said on Thursday. Such data is available nowhere in the country, Dr Bhargava said, adding that the report will be available in 7 to 10 days.
In a presentation that he made on Friday during the health ministry's press conference, Dr Bhargava said Delta Plus has recently been cultured and it is being examined whether the vaccines are effective against this variant. "India was also the first country to culture Delta variant. Now we are working on Delta Plus, as we have enough information on Alpha, Beta," Dr Bhargava said.
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According to international data, presented by Dr Bhargava, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin remains equally effective against the Alpha variant, though against Beta and Delta variant its neutralising capabilities reduce threefold. Covishield's capabilities reduce 2.5 to 9 fold against Alpha and two-fold against Delta. The data also show that Pfizer and Moderna's capabilities reduce significantly against the Delta variant.
"You may have a vaccine with very high antibody response. But its response may get reduced to a great extent against a variant. Then you may have another vaccine that does not have such a high level of antibody response but it does not get reduced much against the variant. So both will be almost of the same platform against a variant," Dr Bhargava said explaining why knowing the effectiveness of vaccines against specific variants is significant.
{{/usCountry}}"You may have a vaccine with very high antibody response. But its response may get reduced to a great extent against a variant. Then you may have another vaccine that does not have such a high level of antibody response but it does not get reduced much against the variant. So both will be almost of the same platform against a variant," Dr Bhargava said explaining why knowing the effectiveness of vaccines against specific variants is significant.
{{/usCountry}}Both Covaxin and Covishield are effective against all variants of Covid-19, including Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, Dr Bhargava said. "Delta Plus is a new variant. 12 countries in the world and 11 states in the country have reported this variant. It has been found in a very localised way - one patient here, two there. But we have isolated it and work is going on," the ICMR DG said.
How effective Covaxin, Covishield, Pfizer, Moderna, Sputnik, Novavax and J&J are against variants
Alpha: Covaxin remains unaffected by the Alpha variant while Covishield's neutralising capability gets reduced 2.5 to 9 fold. The fold reduction figure is 0-4 for Pfizer 0-2 for Moderna, 0 for Sputnik, 2 for Novavax and less than 1 for J&J
Beta: Covaxin's effect gets reduced three fold against this variant. the figure is 0-31 for Covishiedl, 1-4 for Pfizerm 1-28 for Moderna, 7 for Sputnik, 15 for Novavax and 5-10 for J&J
Gamma: This variant results three-fold reduction in Covishield's capabilities, 1-7 fold in Pfizer's and 3-5 in Moderna's vaccine.
Delta: 3-fold reduction in neutralising antibody levels, 2 fold in Covishield, 7-10 fold in Pfizer and 7 in Moderna.