Covishield and Covaxin safe for patients on blood thinners: ICMR chief

Both the covid-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin approved for emergency use in India are safe for patients on blood thinners, Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) Director General Balram Bhargava said on Thursday.

“The blood thinners are of two categories. One is anti-platelets, which are aspirin and clopidogrel which is not a problem at all for taking covid-19 vaccine,” said Bhargava. The second category is anticoagulants like heparin or newer oral anticoagulants for those patients, that tendency to bleed is much higher, the ICMR chief explained. “The only worry is that there can be a local hematoma or a lapel swelling can occur where the injection site is therefore it is a very relative contraindication and the anticoagulant can be stopped for one or two days prior to giving those who are on anticoagulants, but not on thinners like aspirin and clopidogrel, there is no contraindication in both the vaccines for such patients,” said Bhargava.

The ICMR chief said that the health ministry has written to the drug controller general of India and both the vaccine manufacturers to correct the factsheet that has created confusion over contraindications of both the vaccines which indicated that people on blood thinners should not take the vaccines.

The government also affirmed that Bharat Biotech’s covid-19 vaccine covaxin will work against the UK variant of coronavirus, on Thursday. Bhargava said that the concern of the UK variant strain, for the last four weeks has been tremendous across the world and India has so far identified 164 cases.

“The UK variant stain is now present in 70 countries. In India we isolated the virus. They were found in the third week of December and we were able to find the first case of the UK variant. Subsequently, in a week's time, we were able to collect the serum from these patients, or the blood from these patients and culture, the UK strain this culture of the virus was not available in the laboratory,” said Bharghava.

“We wanted to know whether the current vaccines are working on those on this UK strain or not. And we have had some international reports talking about some vaccines, working. Some vaccines working partially. We looked at the data of patients who were immunized with covaxin. We took out the extracted the serum and tested with the cultured virus in the laboratory. And we found that the neutralization of the UK strain was equivalent to the Indian strains that were circulating in India for the last eight or nine months,” he said that this has very is a very reassuring news for us that the UK variant is big can be tackled by this vaccine. And although we are seeing more variants occurring in the world. At present, in India, this is the only variant that we have been able to isolate,” said the ICMR chief.

As India started its nationwide covid-19 vaccination program on January 16th, the total number of healthcare workers vaccinated against covid-19 till Thursday the thirteenth day of the vaccination drive) crossed 28 lakh. A total of 28,47,608 beneficiaries have been vaccinated through 52,667 sessions so far, as per the provisional report available with the union health ministry. Over 4,91,615 beneficiaries were vaccinated through 9,994 sessions.

13 States and UTs have each vaccinated more than 1 lakh beneficiaries (accounting for 83.31% of the total). Around 293 adverse events following immunisation AEFIs have been reported till 7 pm on day-13 of the vaccination drive.

“Some states are vaccinating higher number of healthcare workers considering their large population such as Odhisha. The state has vaccinated over 50% of its healthcare workers. Many states have to pick up vaccination. We have written to the states that they should increase the vaccination among healthcare workers,” said Rajesh Bhushan, secretary, union health ministry.

At least 11,666 daily new cases registered in the last 24 hours. 81.96% of the new cases are from 6 States and UTs. Kerala continues to report the highest daily new cases at 5,659. It is followed by Maharashtra with 2,171, while Tamil Nadu reported 512 new cases. 123 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. Seven States/UTs account for 75.61% of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (32). Kerala follows with 20 daily deaths and Punjab with 10, the union health ministry data said.

With a consistent rise in cumulative recoveries, India’s Recovery Rate among covid-19 patients reached nearly 97% on Thursday. India’s recovery rate is one of the highest globally. With 1,03,73,606 people having recovered so far, 14,301 patients recovered and discharged in the last 24 hours, according to the union health ministry. India’s total Active Caseload has also dropped to less than 1.75 lakh (1,73,740) today. The active caseload now consists of just 1.62% of India’s total Positive Cases.

More than 78% of the active cases are concentrated in five states viz. Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal, said Bhushan.

“Active cases less than 1.75 lakhs after 7 months and declining. Daily number of deaths are less than 125 after 8 months and declining. Cumulative positivity rate, 5.51% and declining,” he said. The total number of covid-19 cases in India have touched 1,07,02730 and the toll mounted to 1,55,132.