Covaxin booster dose neutralises Omicron, Delta variants: Bharat Biotech

Vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech on Wednesday said that a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin neutralises the Delta and Omicron variants of coronavirus, a study has showed.
 
The Hyderabad-based company announced the results from the study conducted at Emory University in US which showed that sera from subjects who received a booster dose of Covaxin six months after getting a primary two-dose series of the same vaccine neutralised the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants.
 
The study will be shortly published on pre-print server, medRXiv, it said.
 
"Sera samples from individuals who received a booster of COVAXIN (BBV152) were observed to be effective in neutralising Omicron and Delta variants on a live virus neutralisation assay. The neutralisation activity of COVAXIN-boosted sera was comparable to what has been observed in mRNA vaccine-boosted sera against the Omicron variant," it said in a release.
 
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More than 90 per cent of all individuals boosted with Covaxin showed neutralising antibodies. All participants received an initial two-dose schedule of Covaxin at Day 0 and Day 28, Bharat Biotech said.

"Data from this preliminary analysis show individuals receiving a booster dose of COVAXIN have a significant immune response to both the Omicron and Delta variants. These findings suggest that a booster dose has the potential to reduce disease severity and hospitalisations," said Mehul Suthar, Assistant Professor at Emory Vaccine Center, who led the laboratory analysis.
 
Last week, the company had announced the results of its trial studying the immunogenicity and safety of Covaxin as a booster dose and said the vaccine is safe and highly immunogenic against all the variants of the coronavirus.
 
"The phase 2, double-blind, randomised controlled Covaxin trial demonstrated long-term safety with no serious adverse events," Bharat Biotech had said, adding that Covaxin booster dose neutralises Alpha, Beta, Delta, Zeta and Kappa variants.

Also Read: Covaxin booster dose highly immunogenic against all COVID-19 variants: Bharat Biotech