Bharat Biotech said that Covaxin study published in Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal based on the research conducted by AIIMS provide evidence for effectiveness for Covaxin in real life settings.

The company said that an effectiveness result of 50 per cent achieved during the peak delta variant Covid-19 wave in India, in a highrisk study population of physicians and healthcare workers, in a hospital environment, and who are challenged repeatedly with high viral loads, provides insights into the efficacy and effectiveness of Covaxin.

Two doses of Covaxin administered at a 28-day interval showed a 50 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 among healthcare workers during India’s second wave, a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal said.

Published last week, the study is the first real-world assessment of the effectiveness of the Bharat Biotech vaccine (BBV152).

The study assessed 2,714 hospital workers from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, who were most exposed to Covid and were primarily offered the BBV152 vaccine.

“Our study offers a more complete picture of how BBV152 performs in the field and should be considered in the context of Covid-19 surge conditions in India, combined with the possible immune evasive potential of the Delta variant,” Manish Soneja, one of the researchers and additional professor of medicine at AIIMS New Delhi, said in a statement.

Bharat Biotech said in a statement that these results compare well with the 65.2 per cent efficacy against the Delta variant obtained during the controlled Phase 3 clinical trials of Covaxin conducted among the general population. This study also shows that Covaxin meets the WHO efficacy criteria for Covid-19 vaccines for the dreaded Delta variant.