International Journal of Infectious Diseases (Sep 2022)

Effectiveness of BBV152/Covaxin and AZD1222/Covishield vaccines against severe COVID-19 and B.1.617.2/Delta variant in India, 2021: a multi-centric hospital-based case-control study

  • Tarun Bhatnagar,
  • Sirshendu Chaudhuri,
  • Manickam Ponnaiah,
  • Pragya D Yadav,
  • R Sabarinathan,
  • Rima R Sahay,
  • Faheem Ahmed,
  • S Aswathy,
  • Pankaj Bhardwaj,
  • Anil Bilimale,
  • M Santhosh Kumar,
  • M. Logaraj,
  • Uday Narlawar,
  • C Palanivel,
  • Prakash Patel,
  • Sanjay K Rai,
  • Vartika Saxena,
  • Arvind Singh,
  • Jeromie WV Thangaraj,
  • Ashwini Agarwal,
  • Yasir Alvi,
  • Amoghashree,
  • P Ashok,
  • Dinesh Babu,
  • Yogesh Bahurupi,
  • Sangita Bhalavi,
  • Priyamadhaba Behera,
  • Priyanka Pandit Biswas,
  • Jaykaran Charan,
  • Nishant Kumar Chauhan,
  • KB Chetak,
  • Lalit Dar,
  • Ayan Das,
  • R Deepashree,
  • Minakshi Dhar,
  • Rahul Dhodapkar,
  • TS Dipu,
  • Mridu Dudeja,
  • Manisha Dudhmal,
  • Ravisekhar Gadepalli,
  • Mahendra Kumar Garg,
  • AV Gayathri,
  • Akhil Dhanesh Goel,
  • H Basavana Gowdappa,
  • Randeep Guleria,
  • Manoj Kumar Gupta,
  • Farzana Islam,
  • Mannu Jain,
  • Vineet Jain,
  • M Lanord Stanley Jawahar,
  • Rajendra Joshi,
  • Shashi Kant,
  • Sitanshu Sekhar Kar,
  • Deepjyoti Kalita,
  • Meenakshi Khapre,
  • Satyendra Khichar,
  • Sarika Prabhakar Kombade,
  • Sunil Kohli,
  • Abhinendra Kumar,
  • Anil Kumar,
  • Deepak Kumar,
  • Kiran G Kulirankal,
  • KV Leela,
  • Triparna Majumdar,
  • Baijayantimala Mishra,
  • Puneet Misra,
  • Sanjeev Misra,
  • Prasanta Raghab Mohapatra,
  • M Narayana Murthy,
  • Dimpal A Nyayanit,
  • Manish Patel,
  • Monika Pathania,
  • Savita Patil,
  • Binod Kumar Patro,
  • Ramniwas Jalandra,
  • Pragati Rathod,
  • Naimesh Shah,
  • Anita Shete,
  • Deepak Shukla,
  • M Shwethashree,
  • Smita Sinha,
  • MN Sumana,
  • Ashish Surana,
  • Anjan Trikha,
  • A Tejashree,
  • Mahalingam Venkateshan,
  • G Vijaykrishnan,
  • Sarita Wadhava,
  • Naveet Wig,
  • Nivedita Gupta,
  • Priya Abraham,
  • Manoj V Murhekar

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 122
pp. 693 – 702

Abstract

Read online

Objectives: India introduced BBV152/Covaxin and AZD1222/Covishield vaccines in January 2021. We estimated the effectiveness of these vaccines against severe COVID-19 among individuals aged ≥45 years. Methods: We did a multi-centric, hospital-based, case-control study between May and July 2021. Cases were severe COVID-19 patients, and controls were COVID-19 negative individuals from 11 hospitals. Vaccine effectiveness (VE) was estimated for complete (2 doses ≥ 14 days) and partial (1 dose ≥ 21 days) vaccination; interval between two vaccine doses and vaccination against the Delta variant. We used the random effects logistic regression model to calculate the adjusted odds ratios (aOR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) after adjusting for relevant known confounders. Results: We enrolled 1143 cases and 2541 control patients. The VE of complete vaccination was 85% (95% CI: 79-89%) with AZD1222/Covishield and 71% (95% CI: 57-81%) with BBV152/Covaxin. The VE was highest for 6-8 weeks between two doses of AZD1222/Covishield (94%, 95% CI: 86-97%) and BBV152/Covaxin (93%, 95% CI: 34-99%). The VE estimates were similar against the Delta strain and sub-lineages. Conclusion: BBV152/Covaxin and AZD1222/Covishield were effective against severe COVID-19 among the Indian population during the period of dominance of the highly transmissible Delta variant in the second wave of the pandemic. An escalation of two-dose coverage with COVID-19 vaccines is critical to reduce severe COVID-19 and further mitigate the pandemic in the country.

Keywords