Healthcare workers feel used as ‘guinea pigs’, hesitate to take Covaxin: Report

According to a survey, some healthcare workers had a general feeling that they were being used as “guinea pigs” by administering Covaxin.

Moneycontrol News

January 22, 2021 / 10:04 AM IST

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin was granted restricted emegency use approval in 'clinical trial mode' on January 2.

India has launched the world’s biggest vaccination drive while approving two COVID-19 vaccines - Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech and Covishield from the Oxford/AstraZeneca stable being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) -- for emergency use in the country.

However, many vaccine recipients are hesitant to roll up their sleeves for a jab of the indigenously-developed Covaxin, which received the approval for emergency use when it was still under "clinical trial mode", says a survey report by The Times of India.

According to the TOI survey, some healthcare workers had a general feeling that they were being used as “guinea pigs” by administering Covaxin.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

The survey, conducted in six cities, further says that nowhere the percentage of healthcare workers going for the Covaxin reached 50 percent.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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