Vaccines Don't Work Instantly, Say Doctors After 2 Test Positive in Mumbai Within Days of First Dose

A community health worker and a doctor from BYL Nair Hospital have tested positive for COVID-19, days after receiving the first doses of the vaccine.

Experts opined that the cases serve as a reminder that vaccines don’t work instantly and recipients must must follow Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. Both patients suffered from moderate infection and had to be hospitalised, The Times of India reported.

The 46-year-old Nair doctor tested positive nine days after vaccination and the health volunteer, in her 50s, four days after. Both had received the Serum Institute-manufactured COVISHIELD.

The doctor took the shot on January 30 and did not suffer from major side-effects. He developed body ache, fever and runny nose on February 9, following which he got an antigen test done. When the rapid antigen test came positive, he did a confirmatory RT-PCR test, which too came positive.

Thereafter, he got admitted to Seven Hills Hospital in Marol, where he has been under treatment.

It takes a few days to weeks for the vaccine to work, Dr Mukesh Desai, immunologist from Wadia Hospital told the TOI.

“Such cases cannot be termed as vaccine failure. It takes anywhere from 10-15 days for the initial immune response to develop. We can call it a vaccine failure if after 15 days of getting two doses, one develops an infection,” he said.

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