In March this year, Lancet published a study on Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. According to the Lancet study, the Phase 2 trial on Covaxin showed it to be better than its peers. The Lancet study also said that the vaccine is safe with no adverse effects.
After either dose, the combined incidence of local and systemic adverse events in this study is lower than that of other Sars-CoV-2 vaccine platform candidates, and similar to that of other inactivated Sars-CoV-2 vaccine candidates.
The study said it “showed better reactogenicity and safety outcomes, and enhanced humoral and cell-mediated immune responses compared with the phase-1 trial.”
So why is the same Covaxin being given a poor review now? According to this Bloomberg report published in November, a newer study on Covaxin in the Lancet published in November claims that it “provides only 50% protection against symptomatic Covid-19” and “suggests the shot is less effective than initially thought.”
The Bloomberg report says that Lancet’s newer study found that the two-dose regime is far less effective than the 77.8% established during the “interim results.” The report says that this may be due to higher infection rates and virus exposure among the hospital’s employees along with the possibility of the Delta variant blunting the vaccine’s protection.
While the report also says “almost all Covid vaccines show reduced effectiveness against the highly infectious delta variant..” it adds that the new research on Covaxin could dent its appeal.
The Bloomberg report seems intent to undermine the previous good review given to Covaxin through other assertions it makes:
The World Health Organization’s independent technical panel also took months before granting emergency approval to Covaxin in early November, repeatedly asking Bharat Biotech for further data.
…The researchers said the AIIMs study didn’t estimate the vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization, severe disease and death, while acknowledging that it wasn’t designed to estimate protection over different time intervals. Patients weren’t tested to find if they were symptomatic due to a specific variant and the authors also pointed to the lack of data on comorbidities and prior infections.
The Lancet study gave a higher ranking to Pfizer-Biontech and AstraZeneca vaccines which have the code names BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19:
When compared with emerging data from the UK on effectiveness of the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccines against symptomatic disease due to the delta variant, our estimates are lower at 50% (compared with 88% and 67%, respectively).
This looks like an attempt to promote the other vaccines. This despite the fact that recently there are reports on the link between mRNA vaccines (of which Pfizer is one) and the increased risk of heart attacks.
Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal expressed the view that this looked like a “political hit.”
Another twitter user pointed out that key factors like the limitations of the Lancet study were not mentioned in the Bloomberg report.
In October, Bloomberg had highlighted in a report that even though Bharat had reached the 1 billion mark in administering vaccines, few people had received both doses. One netizen gave a riposte to the claims made also stating that the publication had not used GoI’s available vaccine tracker when making these claims. Details of his riposte:
It should also be pointed out that so-called less developed nations including Bharat have somehow managed to not have a catastrophic number of cases like many developed nations of Europe and the US have witnessed at different stages. But due credit is not given to these countries. If at all there is positive coverage for less developed nations, it is very rare. For example, this report suggests that most of Africa has managed surprisingly well in terms of numbers despite not even having the vaccine or resources to fight Covid.
Despite pretty high vaccine coverage in many countries, the Omicron is the latest scare promoted that has currently gripped the world. This itself means that what the vaccines promised to deliver (protect people from Covid) hasn’t been accomplished in a foolproof manner. This implies that the media lackeys of Big Pharma had created a vaccine hype keeping the market factor in mind.
And the current coverage suggests that there may be an attempt to deliberately undermine the vaccines developed by poorer countries like Bharat. Undermining the efficacy of Covaxin seems to be a part of this strategy.
The latest narrative being pushed is – having to take booster shots at yearly or six-monthly intervals.
(Featured Image Source: facebook.)
The Lancet has a long history of controversies, see :
https://en.dharmapedia.net/wiki/Pharmedia#The_Lancet
Robert F. Kennedy writes about the Lancet in his recent and excellent book on Covid. He says:
*The capacity of their Pharma overlords to strong-arm the world’s top two medical journals, the NEJM and The Lancet, into condoning deadly research and to simultaneously publish blatantly fraudulent articles in the middle of a pandemic, attests to the cartel’s breathtaking power and ruthlessness.
* It is no longer controversial to acknowledge that drug makers rigorously control medical publishing and that The Lancet, NEJM, and JAMA are utterly corrupted instruments of Pharma.
And now Pfizer is pushing for mRNA boosters every 3 or 6 months! Biden says that the whole world needs to be vaccinated with their mRNA vaccines.
Dr. Michael Yeadon says: ” There’s no logical end game which comes close to fitting the facts but totalitarian tyranny through VaxPass & furthermore, near certain intent on mass depopulation using boosters.”