The Indian government has assured that Covid-19 vaccines, which are in the pipeline in the country and rest of the world, will protect people against the coronavirus variant strains found in the UK and South Africa.
Krishnaswamy Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor to the Indian government said there is no reason for worry at this stage about the efficacy of vaccines in regard to the reported variants of the novel coronavirus.
“There is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against Covid-19 variants reported from UK or South Africa,” said Raghavan.
He also said the changes in the coronavirus strains are not sufficient to make the vaccine ineffective since it stimulates our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies.
“Most of the vaccines target the spike protein, in which there are changes in the variants,” Raghavan said.
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“Vaccines stimulate our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies,” he added.
The scientific advisor also advised that there should not be any complacency in our behavior despite a decline in the positivity and death rate.
“A vaccine will be available soon and it will surely be an exit visa for the virus, but the process of rolling out the vaccine will take time. Till then follow all public health measures scrupulously”, he said.
Meanwhile, fourteen people who have returned to India from the United Kingdom have tested positive for the new variant genome of SARS-CoV-2 on Wednesday.
A total of twenty people have found positive for the new virus strain, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday.
The tally includes six people who were found positive for the new virus strain on Tuesday.