A 62-year-old doctor tested Covid positive 18 days after he received the second dose of the Covishield vaccine, but his symptoms are mild, district health officials here have said.

The doctor, who is posted at the MGM Medical College Hospital, tested positive along with his 56-year-old wife and 27-year-old son after nasal swab samples were taken from them on Sunday, March 7. The wife and son aren’t vaccinated. All three are all in isolation at their residence at Sakchi now.

East Singhbhum district civil surgeon A.K. Lal confirmed the finding but refused to share further details of the doctor who has comorbidities. "This case came to our notice on Tuesday night. We are carrying out further tests. We are closely monitoring the case,” he told The Telegraph Online.

The East Singhbhum district health department has so far administered Covishield vaccines to over 8,000 people. But this is the first case of an inoculated person testing positive.

Experts worldwide say immunity or “best protection” should kick in around 15 days after the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Britain’s National Health Service says there will also be a “significant level” of protection even after the first dose. But doctors globally also say there can be a small chance of getting Covid-19 even after both doses but that the vaccine is likely to reduce the severity of the symptoms.

AstraZeneca says Oxford-led clinical trials from the UK, Brazil and South Africa confirmed that the vaccine was 100 per cent protective against severe disease, hospitalisation and death more than 22 days after the first dose. A Lancet study showed that Covishield’s efficacy against contracting Covid-19 was only 55.1 per cent when the two doses were administered less than six weeks apart. If the vaccinations are administered 12 weeks apart, the vaccine has 81.3 per cent efficacy against the coronavirus, according to Lancet.

In the UK it is being given after an interval of three months. In India, the second dose is being given with a gap of about 28 days.

That’s exactly when the Jamshedpur doctor got his second dose. "I had got the first dose of Covishield on January 19 and the second dose on February 16. But about 10 days ago, my wife complained of fever and cold. I treated her but her fever did not come down. Then I arranged for a Covid test on Sunday. She tested positive," the doctor told The Telegraph Online.

The doctor added that he and his son got tested just to be doubly sure. But while his symptoms are mild, both his wife and son have been severely affected. "I have comorbidity. I was down with mouth cancer two years ago. I have also had open-heart surgery. But despite that I have been mildly affected, possibly because I have taken the vaccine,” the doctor said.

The doctor revealed that his wife had visited a beauty parlour at Aambagan in Sakchi a fortnight ago. Based on this information, the local civic authority, the Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC), sealed the parlour on Wednesday.

"We sealed the parlour as two cases of Covid-19 reported from the Sakchi area had visited it," said Ravi Bharti, JNAC city manager.

According to the district civil surgeon, East Singhbhum has been reporting very few fresh Covid cases. Currently, only 24 patients are undergoing treatment for the killer virus at home and in hospitals.