HomeNewsTrendsCoronavirus pandemic | How and why should you use Aarogya Setu - government's COVID-19 tracking app

Coronavirus pandemic | How and why should you use Aarogya Setu - government's COVID-19 tracking app

The app has tons of essential features and provides real-time updates about the coronavirus pandemic.

April 03, 2020 / 19:09 IST
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As of today, the number of coronavirus cases in India has surpassed 2,000. As the number of coronavirus cases in the country grows, the government is using technology to make information about the virus more accessible to the citizens. The recently launched Aarogya Setu COVID-19 tracking app was developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) with an aim to inform the citizens about the “best practices and relevant advisories pertaining to the containment of COVID-19”.

Here's everything you need to know about it:

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Where can I download Aarogya Setu from?

If you are an Android user, you can download the app from Google’s Play Store. The app can be downloaded on Apple’s App Store for iPhone users. To search the app, simply type out ‘AarogyaSetu’ without any space in between the two words.

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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