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Observational Study
. 2022 May-Jun;155(5&6):518-525.
doi: 10.4103/ijmr.ijmr_1771_21.

Safety, immunogenicity & effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine among healthcare workers in a tertiary care hospital

Sushila Kataria  1 , Pooja Sharma  2 , Manish Kumar Singh  2 , Vikas Deswal  1 , Kuldeep Kumar  2 , Sazid Alam  2 , Vaibhav Gupta  1 , Rashmi Phogat  3 , Smita Sarma  3 , Nipun Patil  4 , Rohit Dutt  5 , Padam Singh  2 , Renu Saxena  6 , Naresh Trehan  7
Affiliations
Observational Study

Safety, immunogenicity & effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine among healthcare workers in a tertiary care hospital

Sushila Kataria et al. Indian J Med Res. 2022 May-Jun.

Abstract

Background & objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant global morbidity and mortality. As the vaccination was rolled out with prioritization on healthcare workers (HCWs), it was desirable to generate evidence on effectiveness of vaccine in prevailing real-life situation for policy planning. The objective of the study was to evaluate the safety, effectiveness and immunogenicity of COVID-19 vaccination among HCWs in a tertiary care hospital.

Methods: This prospective observational study was undertaken on the safety, immunogenicity and effectiveness of the ChAdOx1 nCoV- 19 coronavirus vaccine (Recombinant) during the national vaccine roll out in January-March 2021, in a tertiary care hospital, New Delhi, India.

Results: The vaccine was found to be safe, with local pain, fever and headache as the most common adverse events of milder nature which generally lasted for two days. The adverse events following vaccination were lower in the second dose as compared to the first dose. The vaccine was immunogenic, with seropositivity, which was 51 per cent before vaccination, increasing to 77 per cent after single dose and 98 per cent after two doses. Subgroup analysis indicated that those with the past history of COVID-19 attained seropositivity of 98 per cent even with single dose. The incidence of reverse transcription (RT)-PCR positive COVID-19 was significantly lower among vaccinated (11.7%) as compared to unvaccinated (22.2%). Seven cases of moderate COVID-19 needing hospitalization were seen in the unvaccinated and only one such in the vaccinated group. The difference was significant between the fully vaccinated (10.8%) and the partially vaccinated (12.7%). The hazard of COVID-19 infection was higher among male, age >50 yr and clinical role in the hospital. After adjustment for these factors, the hazard of COVID-19 infection among unvaccinated was 2.09 as compared to fully vaccinated. Vaccine effectiveness was 52.2 per cent in HCWs.

Interpretation & conclusions: ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 coronavirus vaccine (Recombinant) was safe, immunogenic as well as showed effectiveness against the COVID-19 disease (CTRI/2021/01/030582).

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution of log IgG titre levels of healthcare workers at baseline (A) before vaccination, (B) after the first, and (C) after the second dose of vaccination (n=976).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Kaplan-Meier curve - Cumulative probability of COVID-19 infection.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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