Hyderabad: India is in a better position when it comes to dealing with Omicron due to its effective vaccine programme, a senior scientist and an expert in Genome Sequencing has said.
Dr. Rakesh K Mishra, former director Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Hyderabad, in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat, spoke in detail about the new Covid-19 variant that has rattled the world, and how India should deal with it given that its cases are being reported almost every other day.
Dr. Mishra, who specializes in Genomics and Epigenetics, said he was confident that the country was better equipped to deal with the threat because of an exhaustive vaccination drive.
"India is in a much better position. We have a very high seropositivity rate and an excellent vaccine program going on. I hope we can further accelerate it and cover the remaining population as soon as possible," he said.
Even children, he added, should be inoculated as and when the required vaccine is available.
Asked whether booster shots should be an option for the country, Dr. Mishra said covering the entire population should be the priority.
"Booster shots are always good but in India, one has to see what is being gained by it. If you have crores of people who are still unvaccinated, it is better to cover them first. So, the net gain of using booster shots, at this time, is less and in my opinion, will not be a good strategy," he said.
Once the population is fully covered, he said, healthcare and frontline workers, and senior citizens can be given preference when the country decides to go for booster doses.
India's Omicron variant tally is close to 100 with Delhi reporting 10 fresh cases on Friday.
Dr. Mishra said that Omicron was bound to spread more as it was a highly infectious variant but in India "it may go a bit slow".
"...but we have to wait and see. Chances are the infection rate will increase. If that happens and we are not disciplined, we might find ourselves in yet another crisis which will, in turn, lead to more pain and economic stress," he said.
The senior scientist stressed on added surveillance, testing, and isolation which would in turn "frustrate the virus and create speed blocks for it".
Asked if India was looking at a possible third wave, Dr. Mishra said that it depended on whether people stuck to the SOPs.
"If we become careless, even Delta can bring the third wave. If we start partying, have huge gatherings in marriage ceremonies, and organize many more such super spreading events, the problem will start all over again," he warned.
Current vaccines, according to him, provided "strong protection" against Omicron, and those who are fully vaccinated will have milder or even no symptoms if infected with the variant.
"Studies that claim that the vaccines are going to be less effective should not bother. Such things are expected to happen. Immunity is of multiple layers. One is antibody protection and the second one is cell-based immunity which identifies and kills the cells that are infected by the virus. That is how infection is controlled. It is more or less sure that even with Omicron, properly vaccinated individuals are going to have significant protection in terms of symptoms. Vaccine makers, however, never claim that infections would not happen. They will. Symptoms or hospitalization needs will be minimal though," Dr. Mishra said.
In South Africa, where Omicron was first detected, more than half of the people who were infected with it had not reported to the hospitals with symptoms. They, he said, had gone to address other health issues and as a rule, were tested and found to be positive.
Talking about the testing and faster identification of Omicron, Dr. Mishra said at present, genome sequencing was the apt way to identify it, however, there could be a faster way to detect the variant but those "tests still need to be developed".
"To tell surely if one is infected with Omicron, the sample has to go for genome sequencing which is a process in which the sample is taken and put in the DNA sequencing machines where the entire 30,000 bases of the viral genome. Then it is easy to tell the entire history and what variant it is. And even what other mutations are there. The process is very helpful in tracking the variant. So at the moment, to confirm whether one is infected with Omicron or not, genome sequencing is required," he said.
Dr. Mishra suggested that the practice of work from home should still continue for "three to four more months".
"Earlier, staying at home was considered lazy, now it is a smart move. If you can manage from home, it is a good thing. Maybe three to four months more. Though I do not recommend the closure of schools. The children have gone through a lot of pressure. It is a delicate situation for them. If the school staff is fully vaccinated, and once the vaccine is available, children are vaccinated, it is possible to handle it," he said.
Dr Mishra highlighted the need to follow all the SOPs strictly. Wearing masks, he added, must be encouraged as not wearing one was "being uncivil".
"Masks should be considered as a sign of respect to each other. Each one of us can defeat the virus if we do not let it use our body to travel to the next person," he said.
Asked if Covid-19 would ever go away, the senior scientist said the general understanding was that it would change into an endemic.
"The evolutionary process for the virus is to propagate. It does not want to kill people. It simply wants to spread more. If it is not symptomatic, if it is not killing us, we will not even know and the virus will be there like other trillions of microbes in our body. That is what will happen eventually. The evolutionary process suggests that this virus too will get milder and may be reduced to common cold for which we may not even require a vaccine," he said.
