Doctors informed me I would develop antibodies 14 days after second dose of Covaxin shot: Anil Vij

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

Haryana Home and Health Minister Anil Vij on Sunday said the doctors had informed him before giving Covaxine shot that a second dose would be given after 28 days and that he would develop antibodies 14 days after the second dose.

In a tweet on Sunday, Vij said despite taking precautions, he got infected with COVID-19.

He is being treated in Civil Hospital, Ambala and was feeling better now.

Vij was administered COVID-19 vaccine on November 20. He was given a shot of Bharat Biotech’s vaccine Covaxin as a volunteer and the second dose was to be given on December 18.

Days after he was administered a COVID vaccine, Anil Vij tested positive for the virus on Saturday.

The Union Health Ministry and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, which is developing Covaxin in collaboration with the ICMR, said Vij testing positive was not a marker of the vaccine’s efficacy.

They said Covaxin, one of India’s two indigenous COVID-19 vaccines, was a two-dose regimen and Vij had received only one shot so far as a trial participant in Haryana.

“The antibodies against the infection build up in a human being only after a specific number of days pass after the second dose of the vaccine is taken. Since this is a two-dose vaccine. The minister in question has taken only one dose of the vaccine,” a Health Ministry official said.