Vaccination coverage and breakthrough infections of Covid-19 during the second wave among staff of selected medical institutions in India

Bibliographic Data

ID19590977
AuthorsManju Rahi (0000-0003-0932-0935, Indian Council of Medical Research, corresponding author), Chander Prakash Yadav (0000-0001-7531-6307, National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research), Sundus Shafat Ahmad (0000-0002-4008-2544, National Institute of Malaria Research), Nitika Nitika (0000-0003-1455-6504, National Institute of Malaria Research), Payal Das (0000-0003-3459-1278, Indian Council of Medical Research), Shweta Sharma (0000-0002-4566-5677, National Institute of Malaria Research), Rajendra Kumar Baharia (National Institute of Malaria Research), Debdutta Bhattacharya (0000-0001-5199-5288, Regional Medical Research Centre), Pradeep Deshmukh (0000-0002-4172-9522, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Nagpur), Amey Dhatrak (0000-0002-3548-993X, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences), Sandeep Dogra (0000-0002-8160-2518, Government Medical College), Alex Eapen (0000-0002-2511-2557, National Institute of Malaria Research), Pawan Goel, Pawan Kumar Goel (0000-0003-3601-102X, Government Medical College), Nafis Faizi (0000-0002-4634-6790, Aligarh Muslim University), Siraj Ahmed Khan (0000-0002-5142-7691, Regional Medical Research Centre), Sanjay Kumar Kochar (Sardar Patel Medical College), Aditya Kochar (Sardar Patel Medical College), Ashwani Kumar (0000-0002-1387-4503, Vector Control Research Centre), Anuj Mundra (0000-0002-7653-7352, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences), Rahul Narang (0000-0001-9973-5311, All India Institute of Medical Sciences), Kanwar Narain (0000-0002-3463-535X, Regional Medical Research Centre), Krishna Pandey (0000-0001-5930-2458, Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences), Sanghamitra Pati (0000-0002-7717-5592, Regional Medical Research Centre), Pankaja Raghav (0000-0002-4209-3829, All India Institute of Medical Sciences Jodhpur), Ritesh Ranjha (0000-0002-9389-4626, National Institute of Malaria Research), Salman Shah (0000-0002-5135-7486, Aligarh Muslim University), Kuldeep Singh (0000-0002-8180-4646, National Institute of Malaria Research), Piyoosh Kumar Singh (0000-0001-6191-5333, National Institute of Malaria Research), Raj Kumar Singh (0000-0003-2113-8677, National Institute of Malaria Research), Vijesh Sreedhar Kuttiatt (Vector Control Research Centre), Vijesh Shreedhar Kuttiatt (0000-0002-8435-218X), Ravinder Soni, Ravinder Kumar Soni (Dayanand Medical College & Hospital), Uragayala Sreehari, Sreehari Uragayala (0000-0003-4192-6371, National Institute of Malaria Research), Sumit Malhotra (0000-0002-4979-5700, All India Institute of Medical Sciences), Amit Sharma (0000-0001-6130-1913, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, corresponding author)
EditorsMegan Coffee (0000-0002-4581-111X)
Year2023
Volume3
Issue4
Pagese0000946
Publication date2023-04-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePLOS Global Public Health (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2767-3375 • E-ISSN: 2767-3375
PublisherPublic Library of Science (PLoS) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1371/journal.pgph.0000946
PMID37027349
OpenAlexW4362691954
LanguageEN
References cited18

India experienced the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infection from April 3 to June 10, 2021. During the second wave, Delta variant B.1617.2 emerged as the predominant strain, spiking cases from 12.5 million to 29.3 million (cumulative) by the end of the surge in India. Vaccines against COVID-19 are a potent tool to control and end the pandemic in addition to other control measures. India rolled out its vaccination programme on January 16, 2021, initially with two vaccines that were given emergency authorization–Covaxin (BBV152) and Covishield (ChAdOx1 nCoV- 19). Vaccination was initially started for the elderly (60+) and front-line workers and then gradually opened to different age groups. The second wave hit when vaccination was picking up pace in India. There were instances of vaccinated people (fully and partially) getting infected, and reinfections were also reported. We undertook a survey of staff (front line health care workers and supporting) of 15 medical colleges and research institutes across India to assess the vaccination coverage, incidence of breakthrough infections, and reinfections among them from June 2 to July 10, 2021. A total of 1876 staff participated, and 1484 forms were selected for analysis after removing duplicates and erroneous entries (n = 392). We found that among the respondents at the time of response, 17.6% were unvaccinated, 19.8% were partially vaccinated (received the first dose), and 62.5% were fully vaccinated (received both doses). Incidence of breakthrough infections was 8.7% among the 801 individuals (70/801) tested at least 14 days after the 2nd dose of vaccine. Eight participants reported reinfection in the overall infected group and reinfection incidence rate was 5.1%. Out of (N = 349) infected individuals 243 (69.6%) were unvaccinated and 106 (30.3%) were vaccinated. Our findings reveal the protective effect of vaccination and its role as an essential tool in the struggle against this pandemic

Disease · Family medicine · Infection control · Intensive care medicine · Pandemic · Vaccination · COVID-19 epidemiological studies · Medicine · SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research · Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy · Emergency Medicine · Internal Medicine · Pediatrics · Virology