COVID vaccine

[Teju161]

My parents have taken J &J vaccine in April 2021. Can they now take 2 doses of covishield vaccine in India?
Thanks

[AnnieBrooke]

I know nothing about Covishield, but people in the US who have had one J&J shot are being encouraged to booster it.

[Paxiled]

In the US, we're now being told that if you got J&J to booster it with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, as they have so far proven to be the most protective and safest vaccines to take.  Covishield is India's version of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is similar to the J&J in both effectiveness and problems.  The main problem being discussed is mostly a problem for women of childbearing age or younger, a small number of whom have gotten blood clots that are a pretty serious problem.  Combined with the fact that the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines work better and work longer than at least the J&J, which was sold as a one-shot vaccine but is actually probably a 3 shot vaccine in the long run and still at that wouldn't equal the success and safety of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the CDC advice in the US at least would be to boost with one of the mRNA vaccines, not with the J&J and probably not with the AstraZeneca (again, Covishield is a copy of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine).  India has excellent vaccine production facilities and those facilities are relatively new and make most of the vaccines used in the world, so it's not a quality problem, it's more of a bit of a safety problem but even more of an effectiveness problem.  I don't now if the mRNA vaccines are readily available in India or not, but that's the current advice very recently announced by the US CDC.