No company is going to compromise on quality of Covid-19 vaccine, assures expert doctor in SP-CHETNA show

On Friday, SP-CHETNA’s president Mr. Anil Sood hosted a panel discussion on Ten News Live to discuss the efficacy of Covid vaccine and the new mutated version of Covid-19 recently originated in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Rajeev Sood, Dean, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital; Dr. Atul Bhasin, Director & Senior Consultant, Dept. of Internal Medicine, BLK Super Specialty Hospital, New Delhi; and Mr. Rajiv Kakria, Convener, Save our City, Delhi were invited as panelists for this panel discussion.

While talking about the new mutation of Covid-19, Dr. Sood said that mutation is a common phenomenon in all the viruses. The mutations take place in minor molecules.

Dr. Sood said that it is believed that the transmission in case of this new mutation is 60-70% higher than in the case of the original virus. However, it has yet not been deciphered whether the new mutation is more harmful or not.

“However, the good news is that the UK experts are saying that the vaccine will work on this mutation.”

Dr. Sood also talked about another new mutant found out in Africa which is supposed to be way more faster in transmission than any other Covid-19 mutant.

When asked by Mr. Kakria about whether or not there is a need to take any extra precautions to prevent this new mutant of Covid-19, Dr. Sood said that the same kind of precautions have to be followed to prevent all the transmissible diseases which includes regularly washing your hands, using a mask etc.

While sharing his initial thoughts on the new mutant, Dr. Bhasin said that when the virus is trying to mutate, it is trying to grow, but at the same time, because there is an antigenic stimulus which has alredy been created, the mutant virus may not be as harmful as the initial one or it may even come out as a weaker one.

On vaccines, Dr. Bhasin said that the vaccine may protect you once you get infected, but it is not going to prevent you from Covid infection in the first place. Once you get a vaccine and you get infected, you’ll still have symptoms even though you may not land up in hospital.

“The precautions will have to be followed even after the vaccine comes out. We will have to continue the precautions till the world goes into herd immunity which may be another year ahead.

Mr. Rajiv Kakria shared his apprehensions with 2 expert doctors on the panel about the efficacy of the vaccine, arguing that the last vaccine which was developed in record time was for “Mumps” which took 4 years, so how could a quality vaccine be prepared for Covid-19 within just one year? he asked.

Responding to this apprehension, Dr Bhasin questioned whether the vaccine for Mumps was being researched all over the world, were there over 200 vaccines that were being tried?

“At this moment, there are billions of people who are infected with this virus, so 200-400 companies are trying to produce something to get humanity out of the crisis. It is not that only 4-5 companies are running to develop vaccines in order to make profit. We are running to save lives.”

“Even though the vaccine is coming faster, the number of people being tried and number of tests being carried out is very high.”

Dr. Bhasin assured that no company is going to compromise on the quality of vaccine which is going to be brought out.

As far as adverse effects are concerns, each and every thing can have adverse effects, even if we take food in excess, we will have adverse or side effects.

Towards the end of the discussion, Mr. Kakria announced that he will not be taking the vaccine because he has not enough confidence in it and one should not force him. Though he will continue taking due precautions against it.

Dr. Rajeev Sood said that nobody can force anyone to take vaccine. One has to give consent for taking the vaccine, only then he is given the vaccine.

He also urged people to avoid publicizing their decision to take or leave Covid-19 vaccine because others may blindly follow it without understanding the benefits and the risks involved.