A small ICMR study finds that mixing vaccines is safe and provides better immunity

A small study of 18 people conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) discovered that a combination of Covishield and Covaxin shots is safe and, in fact, provides better immunogenicity than two doses of the same vaccine.

However, the researchers have stated that the evidence is very limited and have called for multi-center randomised clinical trials to conclusively prove the findings.

”The reactogenicity profile of the participants of the heterologous group demonstrated that mixing of the two vaccines derived from different platforms is safe,” said the study, conducted by ICMR- Regional Medical Research Centre and ICMR-National Institute of Virology. It has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Travel Medicine.

This study comes months after several people in Uttar Pradesh received Covishield as the first dose followed by inadvertent administration of Covaxin as the second dose.