E-Paper
Only 4.09% fully vaccinated healthcare staff across Apollo Hospitals got Covid-19
The proportion of fully vaccinated healthcare workers developing an infection at Apollo Group was much lower than what has been reported from public hospitals like Lok Nayak and associated Maulana Azad Medical College or Christian Medical College Vellore.
Only 4.09% of the healthcare workers who had received both the doses of their vaccine developed a subsequent coronavirus infection, according to data from 43 units of Apollo Healthcare across India. Among those who had received only one shot of the vaccine, 5.14% got the infection.
The data also showed a higher rate of infection among the healthcare workers who were administered the Indian variant of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Serum Institute of India’s Covishield. 4.32% of the people given Covishield developed an infection afterwards in comparison to 3.85% among the group administered Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
Of the 1,355 who developed an infection, only 90 were hospitalised with three people needing ICU care, showing that severe disease after vaccination is rare. The infection on average happened six weeks after they received a shot. The data of 31,621 healthcare workers was collected between January 16 when the vaccination drive was rolled out and May 30. Of them, 81.9% were fully vaccinated and 18.1% had received only one dose.
“This study period covered the second wave and the maximum infections occurred in April and May 2021. Despite the high infection rate in the community during this period, the vaccinated HCWs were protected.” said SV Kiran, senior vice president and head - Human Resources, Apollo Hospitals Group in a release.
The proportion of fully vaccinated healthcare workers developing an infection at Apollo Group was much lower than what has been reported from public hospitals like Lok Nayak and associated Maulana Azad Medical College or Christian Medical College Vellore.
A study from a Delhi hospital that has been treating only Covid-19 patients for over a year saw an 11% infection rate in vaccinated health care workers. The researchers of the study say that the higher rate of infection was likely a function of exposure to the virus at the hospital that has been treating only Covid-19 patients. The study from Christian Medical College-Vellore found 9.6% of completely vaccinated health care workers contracted the viral infection as against 27.2% of those who were unvaccinated.
