Will take up vaccine shortage during interaction with PM Modi: Uddhav Thackeray

Uddhav Thackeray also said vaccine hesitancy was also an issue besides the unavailability of vaccines and asked more and more people to shed their inhibitions and get vaccinated.

PTI

November 01, 2021 / 09:00 AM IST

File image of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray (Image: Twitter/@ShivSena)

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray expressed concern over what said was a slow pace of coronavirus vaccination in the state, adding he will take up the issue during an interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week.

Thackeray also said vaccine hesitancy was also an issue besides the unavailability of vaccines and asked more and more people to shed their inhibitions and get vaccinated.

In an informal interaction with senior journalists at his official residence Varsha in the posh Malabar Hill area in south Mumbai, Thackeray, flanked by wife Rashmi, did not entertain any queries on politics.

Asked about the long-term strategy of his government to tackle the pandemic, Thackeray quipped, Let us first focus on the task at hand, that is to get more and more people vaccinated and boost the health infrastructure in the state.

People are talking about booster doses. Let us first ensure that all people get both the doses, he said. There are people who have not got even the first dose, he added.People are talking about booster doses.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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