86 employees at Gujarat hospital contracted Covid-19 over a month after finishing vaccination course, study reveals

Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital in Kheda district tracked 461 employees after they received both doses of the Covishield jab. (Picture courtesy: IE)

Eighty-six of 461 employees at a hospital in Gujarat’s Nadiad, who received both doses of the Covishield vaccine, got infected after 38 days of the vaccination on an average, the hospital’s study on breakthrough infections has revealed. One of the employees who contracted the virus succumbed to it.

Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital in the Kheda district tracked 461 employees after they received both doses of Serum Institute of India’s Covishield jab. Of the 86 employees testing positive for the virus, 27 were nurses and technicians, 40 paramedical staff, and 19 doctors. Of these, only nine had comorbidities. Sixty-nine of those infected showed mild symptoms, while one was critical and six others severe. Ten of them required hospitalisation, among which two required ICU beds for high flow oxygen. While one of the two recovered, the other patient died.

The deceased patient was suffering from hypertension and also had cough, malaise, and body ache after 31 days of receiving the second dose. The patient was put on oral medication initially but had to be hospitalised later for oxygen supplementation for dyspnoea and IV steroids. After being put on ventilator support, the patient succumbed on the seventh day of contracting the infection.

All family members of the two employees were also infected, according to the study that was published as pre-print and is yet to be peer-reviewed. The study said the family members had not been vaccinated. While the two fully vaccinated health workers had a mild disease course, their stricken family members had severe disease and there was one death in each of the two families.

The pre-print study’s lead author, Dr Ravindra Sabnis, said the hospital had been granted permission by the local health authorities to treat Covid-19 patients in house. The study has already been submitted to the Indian Journal of Medical Sciences.