New Delhi: At a time when India is anticipating a possible third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) on Thursday cautioned that a more virulent variant may escape vaccine effectiveness. It has appealed for a sincere public health measure.
“The highest probability is that with public health measures and vaccination, the third wave is unlikely to be severe. However, while preparing, we must be ready for all possibilities including a more virulent variant that escapes vaccines. If such a variant were to arise the wave could be harsh,” said Dr Anurag Agarwal, Director of the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat.
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Referring to Indian SARS-Cov-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG), Dr Agarwal said that the purpose of the consortium is to identify such variants early so that this eventuality does not arise. “With ongoing planning, work and public awareness- next wave should not be as bad. If we did not do it, it could be,” he said. The senior scientist at the IGIB is confident that the existing Indian vaccines have been working against the already found different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and it will keep working in the coming days too.
“The vaccines work against the existing variants, especially the Delta variant. The next wave will be called the third wave for various factors and we need to adopt more public health measures to fight against any possible waves,” said Dr Agarwal. He said that Covaxin and Covishield vaccines protect against severe disease. Dr Agarwal strongly recommends that research on the existing vaccines should continue to ascertain its efficacy against all new variants.
The statement given by Dr Agarwal assumes much more significance as India is anticipating a possible third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic amid fear that the vaccines might not work well against different variants. Aware of the fact that different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus might contribute to the resurgence of a possible third wave of the pandemic in India, the Health Ministry has increased the number of genomic sequencing laboratories from 10 to 28.
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A senior official in the Health Ministry said that the laboratories would help the scientists to detect the various variants, especially variant of concern (VoC). It may be mentioned here that the Indian Sars-Cov-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG) has now grown into a 28-laboratory consortium from the 10-lab group when it was set up in January. The INSACOG laboratories screen samples from states and international travellers to understand the spread of mutations of Sars-Cov-2 variants prevalent in the country. As of now, the 10 national laboratories under INSACOG have sequenced 30,000 samples.
To simplify the identification of different variants, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recently recognized the variants by their names and under the new strategy B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in Britain is now known as Alpha and B.1.351, the variant first spotted in South Africa is now known as Beta. P.1, the variant first detected in Brazil is known as Gamma and B.1.617.2, variant first found in India is known as Delta, while earlier found variant in the country is known as Kappa.
The Delta variant was the major reason behind India’s spike in Covid19 cases in the second wave.
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