Over 15,000 fully vaccinated people contracted the Coronavirus while 9,294 of them getting infected a fortnight after receiving both the jibes, the State’s health authorities informed on Thursday.

The Director of Health and Family Welfare, Bijay Panigrahi, who is also heading the COVID-19 vaccination drive in Odisha said, “A total of 33,906 people who either received the single or the double doses got infected post-vaccination. While 18,488 were infected after the administration of the first dose, the remaining 15,418 contracted the disease even after fully inoculated.”

Of the 33,906 getting infected after inoculation, 9,294 are breakthrough infections implying that infection was reported, a fortnight after the administration of the second dose of vaccine, he said.

Odisha has reported a minuscule ratio of people testing COVID-19 positive after administration of vaccine doses.

Odisha now has 50,19,259 fully vaccinated people. Over 2.1 crore people have so far received the COVID vaccine. Of them, over 50 lakh are fully vaccinated.

The vaccines are protective shields to prevent the severity of infection and fatality. It has also gone a long way in reducing the chances of infection.

The low rate of post-vaccination and breakthrough infection bears testimony to the potential efficacy and effectiveness of Covishield and Covaxin jabs being administered to people in the State, he added.

“Although several studies have demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 infection in the vaccinated people presents clinically mild symptoms, it is critical to determine whether severe symptoms can arise in others despite vaccination, as the development of variants is a continuous process”, according to a recent study by Regional Medical Research Center (RMRC)-Bhubaneswar.

As the likely strike third wave looms large, an estimated 16% of the vaccine-eligible adult populations have so far been fully vaccinated.

The Khordha district, of which the State’s capital city of Bhubaneswar is a part, tops the list in terms of vaccination drive with 66% of adult people receiving either the first or second dose.

However, in other parts of the State, the pace of inoculating the vaccine-eligible population is least encouraging, said official sources.