Variation In Covid-19 Strains Will Not Make Vaccines Ineffective, Says Health Ministry

The changes in the Coronavirus strains are not sufficient to make the vaccines ineffective. Here's what Health Ministry stated about the new Covid strain that has entered India.

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New Delhi: There is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against Covid-19 variants reported from the United Kingdom or South Africa, Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan said on Tuesday. Addressing a press conference, Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan spoke about the effectiveness of Coronavirus vaccines against mutant strains. "There is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against Covid-19 variants reported from the United Kingdom or South Africa," he said. Elaborating the reason, the Principal Scientific Advisor explained that most vaccines do target the Spike protein in which there are changes in the variants. Vaccines stimulate our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies and the changes in the variants are not sufficient to make the vaccines ineffective.

There is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against #COVID19 variants reported from UK or SA#Vaccines will work against the reported new #variants of #SARSCoV2: @PrinSciAdvGoI pic.twitter.com/xxWvklLX6G

— PIB India (@PIB_India) December 29, 2020

Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will also be looking at the seriousness of the disease caused by the Covid mutation, its behaviour and immunology. Informing about the same Dr V.K. Paul, Member (Health), Niti Aayog said that "ICMR has decided to look at the aspect of the seriousness of the disease in such patients. Till now, it does not affect the seriousness but is more transmissible. We will go beyond genome sequencing to know about its behaviour and immunology. We will take more comprehensive scientific steps". A total of six passengers from the UK were found to have contracted the new variant genome, the Central government revealed on Tuesday. They have been kept in single room isolation in designated health care facilities. The presence of the new UK variant has already been reported from several countries such as Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon, and Singapore. "The major population is still susceptible to Covid-19 infection in this cold weather. UK variant has travelled to several other countries and also to India, this variant may have its own run and we have to be very careful. One cannot be careless," Dr V.K. Paul advised.