"We Need Vaccines For Children Before Third Wave": AIIMS Chief

On our weekly show, AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria talks to us about fighting the Covid pandemic. On reports of the Covid variant found in India being more infectious, he said, ''Based on the number of cases you're seeing in the areas where the variant has been detected, there is a huge surge in cases. So one could conclude that it seems more infectious, but scientifically we need a more epidemiological correlation." But will the vaccines we have be effective against this variant? Dr Guleria said, "Whatever data we have as of now does suggest the vaccine has efficacy against this new variant." He said the virus will continue to mutate and that we need to have good genome sequencing to pick up the mutations. He also said that we have to look at vaccines that can be used for children and roll them out quickly over the next few months to give them some degree of protection before the third wave of Covid infections hits.