New Delhi: Ahead of the possible third wave of coronavirus, All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS) director Director Dr Randeep Guleria said that there is a need to strengthen the public health system. “As we now prepare for the possibility of the third wave and new variants like Delta Plus, it’s important to see what we can do. We need to look ahead and see how we can strengthen our public health system”, said Guleria, adding that we should focus on lessons learnt from the past.
Stressing on the need to upgrade the health system, Guleria asserted that with changing times, we have to change our public health system. “One of the steps was Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY which has made a huge difference as far as health care is concerned. India’s Public health policy has been designed to provide a standard of care as a package to the population up to the primary health level. The basic aim is to have equitable access to healthcare even in rural/remote areas of the country for everyone who needs it”, he stated.
When Will The third Wave Hit India?
While Guleria had predicted that the third wave of COVID can strike the country in the next six to eight weeks, if Covid-appropriate behaviour is not followed, NK Arora, the chief of the Centre’s Covid-19 working group, said that the third wave of coronavirus could be delayed until December this year.
“ICMR has come up with a study, which says the third wave will come late in the country. We have a window period of 6 to 8 months to vaccinate everybody in the country,” the chairman of the central panel said yesterday.
Will Delta Plus Variant be Responsible For The Third Wave of COVID in India?
“We are very closely monitoring that (the ‘delta plus’ variant) (but) at the moment ‘delta plus’ is not the dominant variant in India. The ‘delta’ variant is. So we need to actively track it, do genome sequencing to see how this variant is behaving in our population and prepare accordingly,” Dr Guleria stated.
Former ICMR chief, Dr Raman Gangakhedkar has said that Delta-plus variant of coronavirus is highly infectious but there is no need to panic. Noting the highly infectious nature of the Delta-plus variant, former chief of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Dr Gangakhedkar said a vaccine is also less effective to it. He, however, added that the researches have shown that mRNA vaccine is likely to be more effective against it.
COVID-19 Cases in India
India saw a single-day rise of 46,148 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,02,79,331, while daily fatalities were recorded below 1000, taking the total death toll to 3,96,730. India saw 979 fatalities due to COVID-19 in a day, the lowest in 76 days.
The active cases declined to 5,72,994 comprising 1.89 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.80 per cent.