European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

INCIDENCE OF COVID-19 INFECTION FOLLOWING IMMUNIZATION AMONG 2ND-YEAR MBBS STUDENTS

Dr. Virendra Kushwaha, *Dr. Pooja Agrawal, Dr. Mangeshkumar Tripathi and Dr. Nasreen Fatma Khan

ABSTRACT

Objectives: India began the administration of two COVID-19 vaccines i.e., Covishield and Covaxin on 16 January 2021 after getting approval for emergency use but several cases of vaccinated people, even those who have received both doses, tested positive for the virus referring to as ―breakthrough‖ infections. This study was to assess the incidence of COVID-19 infection following immunization among 2nd-year MBBS students in Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial (GSVM) medical college, Kanpur during the 2nd wave of the corona pandemic. Materials and Methods: Our study was a prospective, cross-sectional study conducted on second professional MBBS students. The authors administered a self-structured questionnaire to the students. The data obtained were tabulated, analyzed and the results calculated in percentages. Results: Among total 241 respondent students, 184 (76.35%) students were vaccinated. Among vaccinated, 92.93% were vaccinated with covishield and 7.07% with covaxin. Among them, 13 students tested COVID-19 positive documenting a post-vaccination infection rate of 7.06%. Among positive students, 30.77% (4) received their single shots only. The most common signs and symptoms noticed were fever (84.6%) followed by cough (61.5%) and loss of taste and smell (61.5%) followed by body ache (46.2%), sore throat (46.2%), breathlessness (15.4%), malaise (7.7%). Co-morbidity reported as asthma in only 1 whose high-resolution CT-scan score was between 5-10 but 100% opted for home isolation due to non-serious symptoms and the most common pharmacological treatment taken were paracetamol (84.6%) followed by azithromycin (69.23%) and vitamin C-Zinc (69.23%) followed by dexamethasone (7.7%) and ivermectin (7.7%) with a slight change in SPO2 but >95% in 4 (30.8%) students followed by 1 (7.7%) between 90-95%. Conclusion: Our study assessed all 13 vaccinated students, tested positive for COVID-19, and concluded non-serious symptoms with full recovery on home-based treatment mostly within 7-14 days. So, vaccination is a better choice to opt-in long run depicting ―precaution is better than cure‖ is of utmost importance with a distance of two yards and masks are a must.

Keywords: COVID-19, Vaccinated students, Covishield and Covaxin, Recovery, Questionnaire.