Covid-19 Vaccination: National platform to track vaccine's impact to be established soon

New Delhi: A national tracking platform will be established soon to determine the impact of the jabs against Covid-19 and the breakthrough infections that are likely to occur among those with complete and partial immunization, official sources said.

The recommendation of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) to establish such a platform has been accepted by the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 and the Union Health Ministry, they said.

“The Covid-19 Working Group which is part of NTAGI has strongly recommended to urgently establish a national vaccine tracking platform to determine the impact of the Covid vaccine(s) and the breakthrough infections that are likely to occur among those with complete and partial immunisation,” said Dr. N K Arora, the INCLEN Trust chairperson who heads the Covid-19 Working Group.

The vaccine tracker will be particularly important to monitor the impact of increasing the dosing schedule of Covishield, he said, as the government on Thursday accepted the working group’s recommendation to extend the gap between the two doses of the Covishield vaccine from 6-8 weeks to 12-16 weeks.

The current data harmonization work of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and other agencies can be leveraged to set up this facility for review of ground realities on a real-time basis, the NTAGI has recommended.

An educational tool comprising information on the risk of Covid-19 infection during pregnancy, benefits associated with the vaccination, and rare complications associated with vaccines like thrombosis and thrombocytopenia (with Covishield) may be developed.