Breakthrough Infection

Breakthrough Infection

Part of: GS Prelims and GS – II – Health & GS-III – Sci & tech 

In news

• The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has reported that around two to four of 10,000 people given two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have tested positive for the disease.
• Contracting COVID-19 after vaccination is known as breakthrough infection.

Important value additions 

• Breakthrough infections are infections that occur in people who have been vaccinated.
• Such cases are not out of the ordinary as the vaccines that have been approved so far the world over are made to protect against disease and not the transmission of the virus.
• Phase 3 clinical trials conducted before vaccines which were approved showed a fairly constant proportion of infections among those vaccinated.
• In the AstraZeneca trial, for instance, 30 out of 5,807 vaccinated — about 0.5% — were symptomatic and tested positive 14 days after the second shot.