Vaccination coverage and breakthrough infections of COVID-19 during the second wave among staff of selected medical institutions in India

Abstract

India experienced the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infection from April 3 to June 10, 2021. During the second wave, Delta variant B.1617.2 emerged as the predominant strain, spiking cases from 12.5 million to 29.3 million (cumulative) by the end of the surge in India. Vaccines against COVID-19 are a potent tool to control and end the pandemic in addition to other control measures. India rolled out its vaccination programme on January 16, 2021, initially with two vaccines that were given emergency authorization–Covaxin (BBV152) and Covishield (ChAdOx1 nCoV- 19). Vaccination was initially started for the elderly (60+) and front-line workers and then gradually opened to different age groups. The second wave hit when vaccination was picking up pace in India. There were instances of vaccinated people (fully and partially) getting infected, and reinfections were also reported. We undertook a survey of staff (front line health care workers and supporting) of 15 medical colleges and research institutes across India to assess the vaccination coverage, incidence of breakthrough infections, and reinfections among them from June 2 to July 10, 2021. A total of 1876 staff participated, and 1484 forms were selected for analysis after removing duplicates and erroneous entries (n = 392). We found that among the respondents at the time of response, 17.6% were unvaccinated, 19.8% were partially vaccinated (received the first dose), and 62.5% were fully vaccinated (received both doses). Incidence of breakthrough infections was 8.7% among the 801 individuals (70/801) tested at least 14 days after the 2nd dose of vaccine. Eight participants reported reinfection in the overall infected group and reinfection incidence rate was 5.1%. Out of (N = 349) infected individuals 243 (69.6%) were unvaccinated and 106 (30.3%) were vaccinated. Our findings reveal the protective effect of vaccination and its role as an essential tool in the struggle against this pandemic.

Acceptance of Annual Booster Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines Among Indian Healthcare Professionals: A Pan-India Cross-Sectional Survey

“…The majority of the healthcare professionals (69.5%) in our study had taken Covishield while 27.5% of them had taken Covaxin. Similar findings were observed in studies conducted by Rahi M et al [ 20 ] and Masthi NR et al [ 13 ], where more than four-fifths of participants had taken Covishield while a few of them had taken Covaxin. The reason behind this could be that Covishield was the first vaccine that was launched in India among front-line workers, including doctors, and another reason includes its effectiveness being seen to be more than Covaxin as seen in many studies [ 21 - 23 ].…”

COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections Among Healthcare Workers in A Tertiary Care Hospital in Coastal Karnataka, India – A Prospective Cohort Study

“…In our study, it was observed that the incidence and severity of COVID-19 was reduced among the fully vaccinated healthcare workers even during rising cases of Delta and Omicron variants in the district and this finding was similar to most of the contemporary and recent studies. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] The Incidence of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infection among healthcare workers in our study was 7.9% in a year observation period which was similar to a study done by Paris et al with 4.4% over six months, Rahi et al at 8.7% and De Maria et al at 9.7% over one year and 20.2% over 2 years. 17,19,26,27 In studies done by Gurung et al and Bhavya et al, there was a significantly higher incidence of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections among healthcare workers compared to our study which could be partly explained by increased awareness, better adherence to COVID-19 appropriate behaviour in our study and possibility of highly transmissible variants circulating among the participants of their study.…”

“…[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] The Incidence of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infection among healthcare workers in our study was 7.9% in a year observation period which was similar to a study done by Paris et al with 4.4% over six months, Rahi et al at 8.7% and De Maria et al at 9.7% over one year and 20.2% over 2 years. 17,19,26,27 In studies done by Gurung et al and Bhavya et al, there was a significantly higher incidence of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections among healthcare workers compared to our study which could be partly explained by increased awareness, better adherence to COVID-19 appropriate behaviour in our study and possibility of highly transmissible variants circulating among the participants of their study. 16,18 On the contrary, several studies showed a lesser incidence of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infection among healthcare workers when compared with our study.…”

“…Coronavirus disease (COVID- 19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. 1 Most infected people experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover with no specific treatment.…”

Vaccine Breakthrough Infections Among Healthcare Workers in a COVID-19-Designated Tertiary Care Government Hospital in Sikkim

“…The disease-modifying nature of COVID-19 vaccines has been shown by various researchers, where only mild to less severe infections occurred in vaccinated individuals [ 13 , 21 , 23 ]. Doke et al studied patients with BTI in two hospitals in Pune and concluded that replication of the virus is reduced in vaccinated individuals because of the immediate rise in immune response and high levels of neutralizing antibodies during BTI [ 13 ].…”