The world may be in the “last big wave” of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic and the fight to stop the infectious disease that haunts the world could start to end sometime next year, top leaders said. health experts Thursday at the 18th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
The pandemic will begin to slow down once vaccines are implemented, said dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, Dr. Ashish K Jha. “I am hopeful that we are in the last great wave of this pandemic. While things are very bad in the United States and very bad in many parts of Europe, India is a little better than a couple of months ago… What will happen is that when the vaccine begins to be distributed, it will start to make a difference. It will start to slow down the spread of the virus. It will begin to strengthen the immunity of the population, ”he said.
“In a country like the United States, where I suppose 15-20% of people have already been infected, once another 10-20% of people get vaccinated, they start to receive some of the benefits of immunity. of the population. It’s not herd immunity at that level, but it’s helpful. So I hope we don’t see any more major outbreaks, but you will see many places with minor, small and medium outbreaks probably throughout 2021, if not beyond, ”added Dr. Jha.
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Two companies, Pfizer and Moderna, have published preliminary findings showing that their vaccine candidates are around 95% effective in preventing Covid-19.
With the latest advancements in the search for a successful vaccine against the disease, the world must remain cautious and follow the appropriate behavior of Covid, said the director of the Institute of Medical Sciences of India (AIIMS), Dr. Randeep Guleria, while spoke on the subject. Vaccine Development and Lessons from the Pandemic.
“Proper Covid behavior is more important now than ever because there is light at the end of the tunnel. So you can’t say you don’t know when this will end. We know that now it will start to improve sometime next year, ”he said.
“Somehow, due to what I would call ‘Covid fatigue’, we are seeing that many people do not follow the general precautions that we continue to advise. Many of the young people who go out, get the infection, take it home where the elderly get the infection. This can also contribute to increased morbidity and mortality. It would be very sad if someone lost an individual now that the vaccine is around the corner, “he said. “If we hold on for a few more months, we can save a lot of lives.”
Dr. Guleria, who is also part of the national vaccination committee, said he expected at least 30% to 40% of Indians to receive the vaccine by the end of next year, with several vaccines in advanced stages of trials. “I hope that at least 30-40% (the Indians are vaccinated). But I wouldn’t risk guessing. I am sure that all healthcare workers and frontline workers will be vaccinated, but we must also consider the high risk group. It will depend on how many vaccines enter the market in the first quarter in terms of regulatory approvals, ”he said.
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With successful vaccines just around the corner, evidence of immunity lasting about nine months has reassured experts. Dr Jha said: “The evidence so far has been largely reassuring. We know that around the world between 50 and 60 million people are infected; there have been reinfections, but they are very rare. I didn’t expect 100% immunity forever; that is not realistic. What you should expect is that most people are immune for at least a period of time, ideally a year or more. Everyone who has recovered seems to have some degree of immunity and what we found is that it lasts for eight to nine months. ”
With the vaccine, a booster shot may be needed. “It’s okay. It’s not great. But it’s okay,” he said.
The two speakers, who are at the forefront of fighting the pandemic, said they were pleasantly surprised by the development of a vaccine within 10 months of the emergence of a new infection, especially with two of the candidates announcing its efficacy. by about 95%.
“I was very pleasantly surprised. Two or three weeks ago I would have said that I would be happy with a vaccine that was maybe 60% effective, I dare not hope 70%. And yet we have two vaccines, one from Moderna and one from Pfizer, that have been shown to be 95% effective against this virus. That’s in the range of what we’ve seen with the polio vaccine, it’s almost as good as the measles vaccine, ”Dr. Jha said, adding that there are still challenges in vaccinating billions of people in all the world.
Dr. Guleria said: “Nobody expected such a high vaccine efficacy and especially in the older age group. For all the other vaccines, this is encouraging news because they all focus on the same spike protein. The challenge is the next step; once you have the vaccine, then how to get it to each individual, the cold chain, the acquisition. There will be many vaccines to choose from; which group will benefit most from which vaccine and how long immunity lasts. “
NO SHORTCUTS
There were no shortcuts to get vaccinated in such a short time; It was the beginning of research on the Sars-CoV-1 virus that caused the 2002 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that helped.
“How did we achieve the development of a vaccine in just 10 months? Do we take shortcuts? Typically, with vaccine development, there is a sequential process: animal studies are done, then small human trials are done. Then raise money for the next phase. You do careful planning to say if we go through with this or not. It’s all about really minimizing financial losses and making sure you’re prioritizing things correctly. In this pandemic, we have done things in parallel, ”said Dr. Jha.
“When we started human trials, we also did animal trials at the same time. Usually we would do one before the other. All the steps necessary for testing a vaccine have been performed; they have been done much more quickly. We have been willing to suffer financial loss. Part of the reason we got the vaccine in 10 months is that we had spent years developing a vaccine for the original SARS virus, so we had a huge advantage in terms of understanding the spike protein, ”he said.
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He added that as this pandemic begins to come to an end, the world must prepare for future pandemics, where that advantage does not exist, and think of a system that can generate a vaccine quickly.
For people who have seen pandemics and respiratory illnesses, there were warning signs that there would be another pandemic, Dr. Guleria said. He said the country needs to invest much more to be prepared for another in the future.
“When we started, there was a lot of panic that we wouldn’t have enough PPE and ventilators. We now have the ability to export PPE. We said we have very few labs that have the capacity to diagnose Covid-19 using RT-PCR, now we have 2,000 labs scattered across the country and we’re doing over 1.5 million tests a day. There has been a lot of learning. But there has to be more investment in the public sector, there has to be a greater involvement of health professionals in preparing for surveillance, expanding the infrastructure so that every time we have the next pandemic, we learn from this and the let’s move forward instead of making the same mistakes, ”he said.
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