The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has given its approval for a study on mixing of Covaxin and Covishield Covid-19 vaccines in India. The DCGI has said that the study and its clinical trials will be conducted by Christian Medical College in Vellore.
On July 29 an expert panel of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had recommended granting permission for conducting the study.
The trial will involve 300 healthy volunteers.
A recent study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) involving 98 people, 18 of whom had inadvertently received Covishield as the first dose and Covaxin as the second in Uttar Pradesh, showed that combining these two Covid-19 vaccines elicited better immunogenicity than two doses of the same vaccine.
The study also found that immunisation with a combination of Covishield and Covaxin was safe and the adverse effects were also found to be similar when compared to the same dose regimen.