Most patients in West Bengal hospitals are those who have not got a shot, says study

KOLKATA: Ongoing studies on the effectiveness of vaccines at the state’s largest hospital for Covid treatment has revealed that the number of patients admitted for Covid treatment after being vaccinated is about 25 times times lower than the number who hadn’t received the shot. And, the number of those who died after receiving both doses of vaccines was 265 times lower than patients who had not received a single dose.Experts involved in the project, however, said the study is still at an initial stage and a detailed analysis is needed to reach a conclusion based on these figures.
A few private hospitals that are keeping records of their Covid patients have also reported a significantly lower number of admissions of vaccinated people and even lower number of deaths among them.
The study by the state health department is being carried out at four state hospitals — MR Bangur, Medical College, RG Kar and ID Hospital — but figures are available for only M R Bangur for now.
According to data emerging out of MR Bangur Hospital, of the 13,094 positive patients admitted between April 2020 and the first week of June 2021, 501 had taken the vaccine jab against 12,593 who had not received a single dose of any vaccine. Among the 1,593 deaths that occurred during the period, only six had taken both doses of the vaccine.
Health experts say even if the data is initial, it is clear that vaccines provide protection.
Health experts stress that even if a single vaccinated person is infected, it is necessary to go back to the dates of the first and second doses and the date when the infection was detected.
“If a person gets infected three days after the jab, you cannot blame the vaccine. One needs to wait for about three weeks after the first dose and two weeks after the second for the immune response to get activated. We also need to find out if any variant is causing the infection,” said clinical trial specialist Santanu Tripathi.
The health department had, about a month ago, set up a clinical research steering committee with senior professors like Tripathi, professor of pharmacology at IPGMER Avijit Hazra, medicine HOD at RG Kar Medical College Jyotirmoy Pal and principal of BC Roy Hospital for Children Dilip Paul in it. The study is part of the committee’s initiative.
“The data from MR Bangur Hospital requires more analysis along with data from the other three hospitals,” said a member of the panel.
Even private hospitals have started maintaining data on the infected.
“Among the 530 Covid patients admitted in the last month, 444 had not got a single dose while 83 had the first. Only 3 had the second dose. Of the 76 deaths,16 were among those who got the first dose and they had co-morbidities. There was no death among the three who had taken both doses,” said Sudipta Mitra, CEO, Peerless Hospital.
At CMRI Hospital, among 650-odd patients admitted in a month, about 32 had got two doses and all but one — a diabetic in his late 60s — recovered.
“We observed that those infected after the first or second dose have had a mild disease,” said CMRI director of pulmonology Raja Dhar.