In bid to battle Covid, AIIMS' Dr Randeep Guleria pitches vaccine-aided herd immunity

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director Dr Randeep Guleria on Sunday said that it is not practically possible to achieve herd immunity from coronavirus in India. He opined that herd immunity can be attained only after 70% of the population have antibodies to the coronavirus. However, according to the Sero survey data, in India, only 20-25% of people have positive antibodies. Also, there are several types of Covid-19 strains across the world and several individuals contain waning immunity. These strains can be highly contagious and dangerous, he added.

'Not possible to achieve herd immunity'

During his session at the ongoing edition of Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) on his book-“Till We Win: India’s Fight Against The Covid-19 Pandemic”, Dr Guleria asserted, "If we are looking at herd immunity by natural infection, that will be very very difficult and it is unlikely that we will able to achieve that because the Sero survey data shows only around 20 to 25 per cent individuals nationally have positive antibodies so it would be very difficult. We know that people with mild infections tend to gain antibodies over time. One way of having a good amount of people who have some immunity is vaccinations. If we are able to vaccinate a large number of individuals we will have a good mass of people who are protected or immune and that will be very useful"

The AIIMS director further added that the mutation rate is very low because the countries try to keep the cases down. The mutation occurs when the virus replicates. He postulated, "Mutation happens because of more and more replication. If we can keep our cases down or allow them to further fall, we will not see that much of mutation happening as one would have seen otherwise." Giving the example of Brazil, Dr Guleria further informed, "They (Brazil) had claimed that they got heard immunity with almost 70 % of the population being protected because of the past infection, and yet because of the Brazilian variant and waning immunity a large number of people got infected again. And now they are in a very bad situation because of resurgence of cases." 

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Dr Guleria said that vaccination against the pandemic is very important. He added that those who have recovered should also get vaccinated. Adequate antibodies will be made only after taking both doses of the vaccine. Therefore, everyone should get the vaccine. No carelessness should be done in taking the vaccine. Guleria said, "We know that people with mild infections tend to gain antibodies over time. One way of having a good amount of people who have some immunity is vaccination. If we are able to vaccinate a large number of individuals we will have a good mass of people who are protected or immune and that will be very useful. What we have today is not the only vaccine, we will have better vaccines as time moves on and as research moves on. But right now we should take what we have if we want to really make sure that the situation in our country does not deteriorate."

Herd immunity

According to this scientific idea, if a disease spreads to a large part of a group, then the immunity of a human being helps the infected people in fighting that disease. Those who are completely cured after fighting the disease, they become 'immune' from that disease, which means, they have developed immunological properties. Immunity means that a person has an infection and after that his immunity has created anti-bodies capable of countering the virus. As more people become immune, the risk of spreading the infection decreases. This also indirectly provides protection to those who are neither infected nor 'immune' to that disease.

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(With Agency inputs)