The Government has assured that vaccines will work against the new variants of coronavirus and there is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against the new variants reported from the UK and South Africa.
Briefing media in New Delhi yesterday, Principal Scientific Advisor K. Vijay Raghavan said that the changes in the variants of corona virus are not sufficient to make the vaccines ineffective. He said, most vaccines target the spike protein and stimulate our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies.
Giving the details about the new variants, Mr. Raghavan said, 17 important changes have been seen in the new variants and it increases the spread of transmission. He added that the UK variant is more transmissible and it increases the positivity rate. He however clarified that these new variants do not increase the severity of the disease.
The Principal Scientific Advisor informed that Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium is conducting testing and sequencing of samples of international travellers, patients admitted in the hospital and across the country. He advised the people to follow strict compliance measures like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing to ward off this disease.
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