Vaccination coverage remains a major challenge, in India less than 2% of the population is immunized with precautionary doses. At the global level, 56 countries are struggling to vaccinate even 10% of their population.

John Hopkins Scientist, Amita Gupta stated that the highly communicable variant is believed to have emerged in African countries due to their lack of immunization. Tracking hospitalization rates are a key in evaluating the severity of illness and vaccination is an important step against infection. She explained that as immunities dwindle, new variants are evolving mandating the necessity of vaccination for all rather than for healthcare workers and high-risk populations only.

She added that in large and densely populated countries like India, the population should have some measure of protection-either by immunization or previous infection. The pandemic is far from over, however, it is difficult to predict when the new variants will emerge or how those variants will have but vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness by 50% in the infected population. 

She briefed that there are three possible future outcomes i.e., the evolution of the virus with increased infection rate, seasonal epidemic Covid 19, and epidemic Covid 19. It is important to learn a lesson from the current scenario and invest in health infrastructure including long-term investment, and sustainable commitment to standardizing the public healthcare sector for better prevention against such tragedies.

Source: Financial Express