Indian scientists: We have not returned twice the amount of the COVID vaccine | Coronavirus News Plague

The Indian government has widened the gap between the two AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine without the agreement of the scientific community to increase it, three members of the advisory body told Reuters news agency.

The Ministry of Health has announced a change in the selection process from 6-8 weeks to 12-16 weeks on May 13, during which time the shootings were not necessary and the disease was spreading across the country.

The ministry also said that the significant differences were encouraged by the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI), based on actual United Kingdom evidence.

However, NTAGI scientists, selected by the government as three out of 14 “members”, said the body did not have enough information to make such a hypothesis.

MD Gupte, former head of the National Institute of Epidemiology, said NTAGI helped increase the number of doses up to 8-12 weeks – an opportunity the World Health Organization has mandated.

But he added that the group had no information about the differences over 12 weeks.

“Eight to 12 weeks is something we all agreed on, 12 to 16 weeks is something that the government has come out with,” he added.

“That would be great, maybe. We do not know everything about this. ”

This was confirmed by NTAGI colleague Mathew Varghese, who said the group’s response was only 8-12 weeks.

The Ministry of Health, following the lead of the NTAGI working group on COVID-19, said the idea of ​​dosing was based on scientific evidence.

“There were no disputes between NTAGI members,” the minister said on Twitter.

Service words on May 13 he said he received 12-16 weeks of feedback from COVID’s NTAGI working group, as well as a group of government vaccine controllers, called NEGVAC.

Government health officials told a press conference on May 15 that the noise was not raised to address the vaccine crisis but was a “scientific idea”.

JP Muliyil, a member of the seven COVID working group, said there had been discussions within NTAGI to extend the duration of the vaccine but that the body did not respond within 12-16 weeks.

“This number has not been specified,” he said, without elaborating.

NK Arora, the head of the COVID working group, declined to comment to Reuters on his remarks but said his decisions were taken in conjunction with NTAGI in the main.

A NEGVAC spokesman said they “respect NTAGI’s decisions and apply them to our work”, declining to comment further.

The exact data released earlier last month by South Korea showed that a single dose of vaccine from AstraZeneca and Pfizer was 86.6 percent effective in preventing infection among people between the ages of 60 and over.

Muliyil said this adds to the confidence in the technical community that delaying a second shot would not be dangerous.

AstraZeneca vaccine accounts for about 90 percent of the 255.5 million vaccine delivered in India.

The controversy over the measurement came after some scientists argued that the government had delayed responding to another type of virus that posed a risk of infection in April and May.

The government has denied the allegations in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning government labor have been made more than once in the past.

Shahid Jameel, a well-known Indian oil expert who recently left the government body for a variety of viruses after criticizing New Delhi for responding to the epidemic, said officials should express their views on the reasons for the decision to widen the drug gap.

“While our concerns are spreading, we must be vaccinating people to the point of ensuring that they are protected,” he added.