India may eventually need booster shots post Covid-19 vaccination but the need is not immediate or urgent, Dr Anurag Agrawal, director, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), told News18.com.
According to Dr Agrawal, Covid infection plus vaccine shots are expected to give immunity as strong or may be better than two shots plus booster.
IGIB, an institute under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has been sequencing the SARS-CoV-2 genes to understand how new variants will work.
“Covid-19 infection along with two vaccine doses is expected to give immunity as strong as or better than two doses plus booster. Even infection with one vaccine dose gives good protection,” he said, adding: “So a large number of Indians may not need boosters at this time, based on the high seropositivity of over 60% in the ICMR June 2021 survey.”
However, he said, high risk or high exposure people will probably require booster shots “since we do not know the exact infection status of people and it may be more practical to give boosters to this subgroup than to have complex measurements and plans”.
The booster doses, the scientist said, will be required mostly for people who either fall under the risk of being highly exposed to the virus such as healthcare workers or for vulnerable sections, including elderly or people with co-morbidities.
While the process has been kick-started, the concrete plans are yet to be put together.
“There is a lot of work to do before an evidence-based plan can be given. Much of this work is in progress within India,” he said while adding that “We are still trying to understand the durations after which the natural immunity or the immunity given by the vaccine shots starts waning and whether use of two different vaccines gives stronger/longer lasting immunity.”
‘Covid-19 is very much here’
“Covid-19 is very much here and it hasn’t ended,” Dr Agrawal, who is also a pulmonologist and a medical researcher, said.
He further warned of the possible risk of “fresh outbreaks’ in the coming months. “With the festive season around the corner, in absence of basic precautions and crowd control, there is indeed the risk of fresh outbreaks.”
However, he clarified this is different from the risk of a true large third wave, which depends more on emergence of new variants that can reduce the protection of existing immunity.
“Such a new variant has not yet been seen in INSACOG sequencing but that can change within a few months,” he said.
INSACOG — Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium — is a multi-laboratory, multi-agency, pan-India network to monitor genomic variations in the SARS-CoV-2 by a sentinel sequencing effort.
“As of now a large third wave risk seems low but active surveillance and caution should be maintained as we get back to a semblance of normal lives with the opening of educational institutions etc.
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.
Comments
0 comment