Lack of vaccination may lead to new, stronger COVID-19 variants

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NEW DELHI: Healthcare experts have established that people should not delay taking COVID-19 vaccines at all, for they believe that delay will give virus an opportunity to develop new variants and some of them may reduce the efficacy of current vaccines. The Government of India had recently announced that all individuals aged above 18 years of age would be eligible to take COVID-19 vaccine jab from May 1.

Dr. Mervin Leo, Cluster COO, Gleneagles Global Hospitals, said that the virus causing SARS-CoV-2 infection still has many hosts left to replicate in, and thus many opportunities to randomly develop new variants. He believes that if given the chance to mutate any more, many variants may reduce the efficacy of the current vaccine, and therefore it is important that people encourage each other to get vaccinated at the earliest and this way ensure that the virus is driven out of our lives before it engulfs us.

Dr. Aarathi Bellary, Consultant Internal Medicine, SLG Hospitals, said that both the vaccines, Covaxin and Covishield currently available in India are effective, and that recent cases and reports have proved that even a single dose of vaccine can provide decent protection against the infection and its fatal effects. She said that it is unnecessary and irresponsible for people to wait for a year to get vaccinated to observe any side effects of the jabs, because the longer the people will wait, the more likely it will be for the virus to develop into stronger mutations.

Vaccination drive has been launched in a bid to control the pandemic at a population level through reaching herd immunity. Health experts, emphasizing the need of getting vaccination said that the goal cannot be achieved unless each and every one joins the drive and gets themselves vaccinated. Dr. Riyaz Khan, CEO, Continental Hospitals, said that community effort is essential in fight against coronavirus, and everybody needs to step forward and get their vaccination shot, so that India can break the chain of transmission from one person to another.