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India faces 5 uncertainties in COVID-19 outbreak, says ex-RBI governor Urjit Patel

The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of the human race, senior advocate Harish Salve said.

May 11, 2020 / 13:04 IST
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Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel has said India faces five levels of uncertainty due to the coronavirus outbreak.

"There are five sources of uncertainty: behaviour of the virus; timeline of an effective treatment; timeline for a safe and effective vaccine; government regulations and policies and behaviour of citizens," Patel said while speaking at HungerTalks: The 50 days that turned India.

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HungerTalks is a series of webinar organised by YUVA, an NGO, which has invited experts from diverse fields to help in its efforts to raise funds for COVID-19 relief.

"In the three months of COVID crisis, between the central and the state government, there have been 4,000 orders," Patel added.

COVID-19 Vaccine
Frequently Asked Questions

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How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.
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