As the active load of coronavirus cases in the country grew to an eight-month high, noted pulmonologist Dr Randeep Guleria, on April 14, highlighted the need to assess the efficacy of Covid vaccines against new variants. He added that the focus should be on developing new jabs to tackle emerging mutations.
“We should collect data to see the efficacy of the current vaccines against new variants. We should also develop new vaccines, which should be able to cover the emerging and new variants so that we have good vaccines available if there’s a sudden surge in cases,” Dr Guleria, former director of AIIMS, Delhi, told Moneycontrol.
He said the strategies to deal with coronavirus should evolve with time.
“We already have a bivalent vaccine, Europe and the US are using it. India should also start looking at what should be done to stay ahead of the curve in terms of being able to develop a vaccine that deals with new variants or possible emerging variants,” he added.
The comments from the top pulmonologist come at a time when India reported 11,109 cases and 29 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per the Health Ministry.
Active Covid cases in India rose to 49,622.
Dr Guleria, who was also part of the National Task Force (NTF) on Covid, said the caseload may start coming down in the coming fortnight.
“My own feeling is that in the next two weeks or so, when the weather changes and it becomes hot and we cross the incubation period for transmission, we should be able to see a decline in cases,” he said.
The former AIIMS director said the coronavirus would continue to mutate and become more infectious, adding that the country will continue to see smaller waves in the coming months.
Covid and influenza burden on hospitals
Commenting on the surge in influenza cases along with Covid, Dr Guleria said the number of patients coming to the hospital with a severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) has not changed dramatically.
“A lot of people don't get themselves tested for influenza, the number of labs are also not that many compared to those for Covid. Hence, influenza cases get missed. I personally feel that the number of influenza cases are more than what is being reported,” he added.
Dr Guleria, who currently heads the internal medicine and respiratory diseases division in Medanta, Gurgugram, said the hospitalisation of patients suffering from severe pneumonia triggered by influenza has also not gone up significantly.
“We are not seeing a huge surge in the number of patients coming with Covid or influenza pneumonia, who require oxygenation and are awaiting ventilation. Admissions happening in Covid are for patients with comorbidities,” he added.
Asked about the threat of Covid and influenza on unvaccinated children, Dr Guleria said young children, the elderly, and those with comorbidities should definitely get themselves vaccinated against influenza.
“I would say that at least the high-risk group, those with comorbidities, the elderly, young children, and even pregnant women should get themselves vaccinated because it helps make the disease less severe, were they to get it,” he added.
Commenting on the rate of hospitalisation in the younger age group, Dr Guleria said the hospital was seeing admissions of children but the numbers aren’t big.
“I would say that we are seeing the admission of children to some extent, but it's not that there's a huge surge in the number of patients coming with influenza or Covid. We've already seen that as far as Covid is concerned, by and large children are a little bit more protected compared to adults in terms of getting a severe infection,” he explained.
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