Coronavirus pandemic | 5 women in the forefront of India's COVID-19 battle

The five coronavirus warriors are Preeti Sudan, Beela Rajesh, Dr Priya Abraham, Dr Nivedita Gupta, and Dr Renu Swarup

Moneycontrol News

April 09, 2020 / 21:37 IST

As the number of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, cases in India continues to rise, several citizens are risking their lives daily to be on the frontline of this battle against the deadly disease that has killed more than 88,000 people across the globe.

Among Indians who are leading the country’s fight against the pandemic, are five women, The Print reported. They have been toiling day and night to ensure all the key departments concerning disease diagnosis and prevention, etc, continue to function smoothly.

For live updates on coronavirus, click here

They are Secretary at Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Preeti Sudan, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Beela Rajesh, National Institute of Virology Director Dr Priya Abraham, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) senior scientist Dr Nivedita Gupta, and the Secretary of ICMR’s Department of Biotechnology Secretary Dr Renu Swarup.

While Sudan has been busy ensuring all the concerned departments are executing the Centre’s policies to tackle the spread of the novel coronavirus accurately, Rajesh has spending hours trying to raise awareness on the disease through social media. Sudan also updates herself with the preparedness of each state and Union Territories to deal with the crisis and is currently the first point of contact if any query related to the disease is directed to the Prime Minister’s Office.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Show