Dr Guleria said it would be wrong to give the vaccines to young people before the elderly, who are at higher risk of dying from the infection, are covered.
AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria, amid fresh surge in daily infections of Covid-19 that has led to demands that the central government ease restrictions and make vaccines more widely available to the Indian public, said it would be wrong to give the vaccines to young people before the elderly, who are at higher risk of dying from the infection, are covered.
Dr Guleria, in conversation with News18, said vaccination should continue in stages based on the priority groups formed by the government, and the focus should be on following Covid-19 appropriate behaviour, as well as testing, tracing, and isolating to curb the spread of the second wave of infections in the country.
When questioned that considering the vaccine wastage, is government likely to open vaccination for all, Dr Guleria said: “I think the states have to develop a strategy so that vaccines don’t go to waste. We must understand that vaccines come in vials that have 20 doses, so you have to develop a strategy so that you know how many vials to open. You may have a case at the end of the day as you open a vial and you have only one or two people who want to be vaccinated. Then if you vaccinate the two people, the remaining eight doses may get wasted. So a strategy needs to be developed at each level so there is a good balance between the number of vials that one opens and the number of people who come to get themselves vaccinated.”
Talking about developing herd immunity, Dr Guleria told News18: “I personally feel that it will take a really long time to achieve herd immunity. We may not be able to achieve it at all too, because we are currently assuming that the virus will remain the same for us to achieve herd immunity. The virus will keep on mutating, so there is a chance that the virus mutates to an extent that those who had been infected say 6-7 months or 8 months ago have now less immunity against the new strain.
When asked the reasons behind the recent spike in cases of Covid-19 infection and whether new mutant strains were responsible for it, Dr Guleria said: “It is being driven by multiple factors. One factor definitely could be the virus evolving and becoming more effective, but even if the virus has evolved and become more infectious and IS spreading rapidly, it will only spread if we allow it to spread. Therefore, any variant or mutant will spread if we don’t follow Covid-appropriate behaviour. So we have seen people have stopped wearing masks, there is no physical distancing, people are having parties and big get-togethers, without wearing a mask.
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