By Nirmala Carvalho
Mumbai: Vaccines are working well against the Indian (delta) variant of the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, according to a study on healthcare staff working at the Christian Medical College in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore town.
By April 30, at the height of the second wave of the pandemic in India, about 84.8 percent of the medical school’s employees received a shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine with a smaller number getting the Indian-made Covaxin.
The medical school, managed by the Protestant Church of South India, has more than 2,600 beds and 10,600 employees.
Some 679 (9.6 percent) of the 7,080 employees of the Vellore hospital who received their second dose became infected by the virus within 47 days of the second dose. This is 65 percent lower than for the unvaccinated.
In addition, those who contracted Covid-19 also required fewer hospitalizations (-77 percent), less use of oxygen tanks (-92 percent) and fewer intensive care admissions (-94 percent).
“The only staff member who died since the beginning of the pandemic had multiple co-morbidities and had not taken the vaccine,” noted the study, authored by Doctor Joy J Mammen, professor at the medical school’s Department of Transfusion Medicine.
“The study, though limited to healthcare workers at the Christian Medical College, was done very scientifically with statistically significant data,” Doctor Pascoal Carvalho, member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told AsiaNews about the research.
So far, some 254 million doses of vaccine have been administered in India or 15.2 percent of the population. Some 70,421 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours, far less than in previous weeks, with the overall death toll now standing at 374,305.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, favors vaccination.
“I have not read the study,” he told AsiaNews, but “I have been encouraged by what the Pope has said and I am following his example explaining that it (vaccination) is an act of charity and an obligation for oneself and for others.”
For the prelate, it is essential “not to be a carrier” of the virus. Ultimately, “the world has to get rid of it. I am 100 per cent certain that from a moral point of view there is nothing intrinsically wrong with it.” In fact, the Bishops’ Conference has “examined” the issue and “released a statement“ too clarify the matter.
“Our healthcare personnel are carrying out campaigns, even in remote areas, encouraging people to get vaccinated,” the cardinal explained.
“The Church in India operates over a thousand hospitals with over 60,000 beds,” he added. “Catholic youth volunteers are encouraging people to get vaccinated.”
“In the Archdiocese of Bombay (Mumbai), many of our convent schools and hospitals have opened their premises as vaccination centres where people of all faiths can get their vaccination.”
Indeed, “On 6 June, the Sisters of St Joseph’s Convent” welcomed “around a thousand Chembur residents” for vaccination. They were thanked by State Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackery, the son of Chief Minister” Uddhav Thackery.
Source: asianews.it
“679 employees of the Vellore CMC hospital who received their second dose became infected by the virus within 47 days of the second dose.” How can the medical science or a hospital or the government justify this?
Every human life is precious and important. A hospital or government cannot just play with the innocent lives in the name of “Vaccination”.
I have often seen medical experts from CMC Vellore on TV giving very valuable advice. I have not seen any thing comparable to it from the”more than 1000 hospitals” run by the Catholic Church.