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. This study and its clinical trials will be conducted by Christian Medical College, Vellore. This comes days after the ICMR observed in a preprint study that a combination of these COVID-19 vaccines elicited better safety and immunogenicity results than two doses of the same vaccine.
On July 29, a Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had recommended conducting this study. In its meeting, the expert committee recommended granting permission to CMC, Vellore for conducting the Phase-4 clinical trial covering 300 healthy volunteers for mixing of Covid-19 vaccines Covaxin and Covishield. The aim of this study will be to ascertain whether two different vaccine doses can be administered to a person instead of the current practice of administering two shots of the same vaccine. This proposed study would be different from the recent study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on a group of vaccine recipients who were accidentally given doses of different Covid-19 vaccines in Uttar Pradesh earlier this year. Apart from recommending the study on mixing Covaxin and Covishield, the expert committee had also recommended mixing of Covaxin and a nasal vaccine candidate (BBV154) that is being developed by Bharat Biotech.
