Scientists of CSIR-Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), after studying 940 COVID-19 sample genome sequencing, reiterated that the ‘A2a’ is the most prevalent virus strain in the country from March to June. Most of the samples came from nine States — Gujarat, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Karnataka, Delhi, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
That 90% of the virus strain in the country conforms to those prevalent in rest of the world “means mutations are not happening as much and the research process on finding new drugs and vaccines can go on more sound lines”, said CCMB director Rakesh Mishra on Sunday. Though hectic efforts are being made to treat COVID-19 patients with available repurposed anti-viral drugs, he asserted that since vaccine development is a lengthy process, the only option left is a ‘social vaccine’.
It means ‘maintaining personal hygiene, washing hands regularly, wearing a mask and maintaining social distance’ and rapidly testing more people even if they are asymptomatic to deal with alarming rise of COVID-19 cases in Telangana and across the country. “We are in a really bad shape and we are not sure of either the peak or plateau without taking up testing of samples on a massive scale. We are in for a long haul of four-five months at least,” he said.
Fortunately, asymptomatic patients constitute 80% of the infected persons and the mortality rate, too, is low when compared to other countries. Whether this has happened due to our younger demographic profile and enhanced immunity due to earlier exposure to similar viruses or anything else is being studied, said the director.
Lockdown advantage
Earlier lockdowns did help in “giving us some advantage in slowing down the spread” but now we have to ensure that the hospitals are not filled up by minimising the number of sick people needing specialised medicare. But, this can be done only with citizens following the prevention methods of ‘social vaccine’ and not moving in large gatherings or hosting functions.
“The rising number of cases is because more people seem to be under the impression that the virus will not infect them, so they are throwing caution to the winds but that is dangerous,” warned Dr. Mishra. “It is easy to blame the government but the onus is more on citizens on a ‘70:30’ ratio to show self-discipline if we are to not go on the route of disaster. We need to give breathing space to healthcare workers too by playing our part in taking precautions,” he added.
Published - July 05, 2020 11:23 pm IST
