People have several doubts about COVID-19 vaccine. From whether vaccine is safe to which vaccine should be taken to why people are testing positive for coronavirus after vaccination. Dr Raman Gangakhedkar, the prestigious Dr C G Pandit National Chair at Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) said, “Whatever vaccine one takes, it will protect one from the severity of coronavirus. It is a kind of immune building against this dreaded virus.” Dr Gangakhedkar is the recipient of Padma Shri for his research work on HIV/AIDS. Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, had emerged as the face of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

 

While talking to ‘The Hitavada’ Dr Gangakhedkar said, “As you asked there are several such issues like the efficacy of Covaxin is 81%, it is 70% in case of Covishield while Pfizer has claimed 95% efficacy. We should not go into these details as to which vaccine has how much efficacy. Go and take the vaccine which is available.” According to a senior doctor, if one takes vaccine and after second dose the antibodies viz IgG and IgM are not formed then it means the vaccination has not worked on that person. Dr Gangakhedkar explained, “The common antibody test that we are conducting at present are ok for the persons who got infected with COVID. Those tests are not to be done on the persons who have taken COVID-19 vaccine. The tests to check whether my body has developed antibodies against a receptor-binding domain (RBD) (a key part of a virus located on its ‘spike’ domain that allows it to dock to body receptors to gain entry into cells and lead to infection) or whether the body has developed antibodies against T cells (A type of white blood cell that is of key importance to the immune system and is at the core of adaptive immunity, the system that tailors the body’s immune response to specific pathogens.

 

The T cells are like soldiers who search out and destroy the targeted invaders). It means we are facing wrong tests to check whether I am protected by vaccine or not. “ The IgG antibodies too have the assay of other antibodies like antibodies against spike protein or against nucleo protein. Coronavirus has sharp cover known as spike proteins. Spike proteins play an important role as far as infection of virus is concerned. Viruses have nucleic acid and proteins which assemble themselves into a structure called nucleoproteins or nucleocapsid. According to Dr Gangakhedkar whether the vaccine is able to create antibodies against these two proteins or not is still uncertain. There is confusion among people about which vaccine should be taken. Some say Covaxin is good, some say Covishield is always better, some advise Pfizer. Dr Gangakhedkar clarified, the purpose of vaccine is to protect the person from the severity of the coronavirus. Those who would take vaccine, be it Covaxin or Covishield, they would not die of this dreaded virus. Whether people test positive for this virus even after they are administered the vaccine?

 

“They can test positive for coronavirus even after taking vaccine but that doesn’t mean vaccine has not worked. The vaccinated person has not that impact of virus which the non-vaccinated person is likely to have. Vaccinated will not have severe disease,” pointed out Dr Gangakhedkar. “All vaccine would work against spike protein so all are on same level. But if a variant is formed then how far the vaccine would work is not clear. But covaxin has one peculiarity according to which it would work against spike protein and also it has the capacity to tackle the variants. Against this backdrop covaxin is showing better results. The side effect of covaxin too are not much,” commented Dr Gangakhedkar.