{"id":28641,"date":"2021-02-22T14:13:42","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T08:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmakhani.com\/?p=28641"},"modified":"2021-02-22T14:13:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T08:43:42","slug":"the-case-for-rapid-vaccination-of-india-and-the-rest-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/the-case-for-rapid-vaccination-of-india-and-the-rest-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case for Rapid Vaccination of India and the Rest of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Case for Rapid Vaccination of India and the Rest of the World
\n<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
FEBRUARY 22nd<\/div>\n

Publicly available data on the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, indicates that the number of infections in India peaked sometime in September 2020, and has been consistently declining ever since. From a maximum of 97,655 daily new cases on September 11, 2020, the daily new case count is 11,924 by first week in February 2021, with half of it from Kerala. According to the projections of the COVID-19 National Supermodel Committee set up by the Department of Science and Technology, the number of active cases will drop to the low tens of thousands by the end of March.<\/p>\n

All this connotes\u00a0only the end of the first phase of our fight against the virus<\/strong>.\u00a0 It is crucial to ensure that the number of cases does not start increasing again, as it has in many countries such as Italy, the UK, and the USA.\u00a0 According to both serological surveys as well as model predictions,\u00a0a substantial fraction of India\u2019s population currently has immunity against the virus, coupled perhaps with some natural form of immunity<\/strong>.\u00a0 Although the current evidence is suggestive of long lasting immune memory, the immunity afforded by the presence of antibodies might be expected to last for only several months and not longer, while T-cell mediated immunity might last longer.\u00a0\u00a0The most reliable longer-term protection is, however, provided through vaccination<\/strong>.\u00a0 It has been suggested recently that\u00a0vaccination offers much stronger immune response than natural infection, and therefore is the key to controlling the spread of the disease<\/strong>.\u00a0 While this issue has not yet been settled decisively, some medical researchers are of the opinion that the presence of antibodies (caused by a previous infection) offers less protection against reinfection from a mutation of the virus, compared to vaccination.\u00a0 Hence, it is imperative that the nationwide vaccination program be completed as early as possible with the approved vaccines. Interestingly, the breadth of antibody response generated by a killed virus vaccine is likely to offer greater protection against mutated viruses, compared to vaccines that generate antibodies against the spike protein.<\/p>\n

In the context of the need for nationwide vaccination, we are happy that the regulatory authorities in India have given approval to two vaccines, one of them (Covishield) unconditionally and the other (Covaxin) in the clinical trial mode.\u00a0 Both vaccines have satisfied the expert committees as to safety and immunogenicity requirements.\u00a0 We wait for the Phase III data on Covaxin to become available so that its efficacy can be assessed.<\/p>\n

While there have been thousands of mutations observed in the SARS-CoV-2 virus to date, the so-called UK variant is the first one to have demonstrated increased transmissibility, and perhaps, greater lethality after infection.\u00a0 The world has thus far been fortunate in this regard.\u00a0 However, the longer the virus is allowed to spread among an unprotected public, the greater the opportunities for the virus to mutate into a more virulent form.\u00a0\u00a0 This is all the more reason to start vaccinations with all available resources.\u00a0 In this connection, it is heartening that a preprint deposited in Biorxiv suggests that Covaxin is effective against the UK variant.\u00a0 We quote: \u201cA comparable neutralization activity of sera of the vaccinated individuals shown against UK-variant and the heterologous strain with similar efficiency, dispel the uncertainty of possible neutralization escape<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The above line of reasoning suggests that we must stop the virus spreading and mutating and for that it is not enough that everyone in India only are vaccinated. In order to see an end to the pandemic, it is essential for the rest of the world also to be vaccinated as quickly as possible.\u00a0 India is well-poised to meet not just its own vaccine requirements, but also that of the world at large, in this critical area.\u00a0 It also suggests that India\u2019s \u201cvaccine diplomacy\u201d of being the supplier of choice for the world\u2019s vaccine demands is well-placed and offers hope for the global community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u0a2e\u0a3e\u0a2b\u0a3c \u0a15\u0a30\u0a28\u0a3e, \u0a07\u0a39 \u0a16\u0a2c\u0a30 \u0a24\u0a41\u0a39\u0a3e\u0a21\u0a40 \u0a2c\u0a47\u0a28\u0a24\u0a40 \u0a2d\u0a3e\u0a38\u0a3c\u0a3e \u0a35\u0a3f\u0a71\u0a1a \u0a09\u0a2a\u0a32\u0a2c\u0a27 \u0a28\u0a39\u0a40\u0a02 \u0a39\u0a48\u0964 \u0a15\u0a3f\u0a30\u0a2a\u0a3e \u0a15\u0a30\u0a15\u0a47 \u0a07\u0a71\u0a25\u0a47 \u0a26\u0a47\u0a16\u0a4b\u0964 The Case for Rapid Vaccination of India and the Rest of the World FEBRUARY 22nd Publicly available data on the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, indicates that the number of infections in India peaked sometime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":28642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1528,1563,122],"tags":[15467],"class_list":["post-28641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-covid-19","category-health","category-news","tag-the-case-for-rapid-vaccination-of-india-and-the-rest-of-the-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnarad.com\/pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}