Vaccines are working well against the Indian (delta) variant of the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, according to a study on healthcare staff working at the Christian Medical College in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore town.
By April 30, at the height of the second wave of the pandemic in India, about 84.8 percent of the medical school’s employees received a shot of the Astra Zeneca vaccine with a smaller number getting the Indian-made Covaxin.
The medical school, managed by the Protestant Church of South India, has more than 2,600 beds and 10,600 employees.
Some 679 (9.6%) of the 7,080 employees of the Vellore hospital who received their second dose became infected by the virus within 47 days of the second dose. This is 65% lower than for the unvaccinated.
In addition, those who contracted Covid-19 also required fewer hospitalizations (-77%), less use of oxygen tanks (-92%) and fewer intensive care admissions (-94%).
“The only staff member who died since the beginning of the pandemic had multiple co-morbidities and had not taken the vaccine,” noted the study, autho-red by Doctor Joy J Mammen, professor at the medical school’s Department of Transfusion Medicine.