AMC studying efficacy of Covishield among its health workers

AHMEDABAD: The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has started a study to understand the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine among its health workers who have received either one dose or both the doses of Covishield vaccine and were not infected with the virus till date. The study is being done on the efficacy of vaccine developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

Health workers across the civic body’s urban health centres and hospitals will be tracked for antibody titers every 15 days, for over six months. The duration maybe further extended from six months, depending on the efficacy data collected.

According to AMC officials, the study will soon be registered as a trial. The civic body has already taken the first data point in the last week of May (out of the total estimated 12 data points). These data points were taken of approximately 1000 health workers, after receiving approval from their ethics committee. Citing reasons for selecting health workers for the study, officials said that it is easy to track them periodically and they are the most exposed to the virus.

The AMC is also currently conducting another round of sero-survey, which is registered with Clinical Trials Registry – India. This fifth sero-survey will solely look at the presence of COVID-19 antibodies owing to infection or vaccines.  According to AMC officials, the final data of fifth serosurvey will also include an analysis to determine seropositivity among vaccinated population.