On Wednesday, eight doctors who were from Mumbai got themselves immunized with Covaxin in JJ Hospital, refusing to take vaccine shots of Covishield vaccine,

Those who opted for Covaxin were two ophthalmologists, a gynaecologist along with his paediatrician wife and their son, a port health official and a critical care physician from Panvel. The recipients explained the reasons as to why they chose to be inoculated by Covaxin instead of Covishield vaccine.

Dr Vivel Giri, who is the port health officer said that he opted for Covaxin as he had more trust in the technology which they had used of inactivated virus and was confident that it can manage the mutated strains of coronavirus too. Dr Supriya Sahastrabuddhe, who is a Panvel-based critical care physician expressed her trust in the time-tested technology that had worked in hepatitis and rotavirus vaccines. Other medical staff who received the Covaxin stated that they did not suffer from fever or headache after taking the vaccine shot.

Dean of JJ Dr Ranjit Mankeshwar said it was inspiring that the doctors were very keen on taking the Covaxin shot. He further said that they will be ready to give it to anybody who wants to take it voluntarily even though they are not a part of the JJ group.

Covaxin is developed by Bharat Biotech and Indian Council of Medical Research and is been surrounded by controversy from the time it had received an emergency approval even before the completion of phase 3 trials. The vaccine is given to recipients in a ‘clinical trial mode’ with an informed consent that is signed by recipients.

The hospital authorities are still struggling to promote the use of Covaxin to potential recipients, but the turnover of hospital staff who want to take it is still quite low. On Wednesday, a total of 18 people took the vaccine, which includes the eight doctors.

The administration of Covaxin to the eight medical staff has steered in some hope for the hospital staff and has stated that they will be allowing voluntary walk-ins for the Bharat Biotech-manufactured vaccine as the names have been registered on the Co-Win app used to monitor the immunisation programme.

Source : News 18