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Despite the new variant of Covid-19 wreaking havoc across the globe, a US scientist has claimed that the pandemic will end soon. Dr Kutub Mahmoood, Scientist and Virologist from Washington, DC said that "So, this cannot go on forever, and that end is pretty soon. I would say there is no winner in this game of chess, this is going to be a draw, where the virus will go in hiding and we win, we may come out of hiding behind our facemask. So, we hope to move forward, I think we are getting very close to that".
As India achieved the milestone of cumulative vaccine coverage of 156 crores on the first anniversary of the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive that started on January 16, 2021, Dr Kutub Mahmoood said that vaccination is the strongest weapon in the fight against Covid-19. We have weapons that we have used against the virus with the vaccines, the antivirals, and the antibodies," said Dr Kutub.
On further mutations of the Covid-19 virus and future battles against the other variants, the virologist said, "There is a pressure on the virus to mutate and to adapt to the changing immunity in humans and then it tries to make these mutants so that it can escape. This is like a game, like a chess game, I would say as an analogy between the virus and the humans. So, that virus is putting out its moves, we as humans are putting out our moves. We have small moves, which are the facemask, hand sanitisers, social distancing".
"If there are any certain mutants coming in, we will not be surprised. I think we should be able to contain it with vaccinations. If the population is vaccinated, that would be my strong message, to get those vaccines and the boosters so that they are protected against any of these variants," the US-based scientist added.
Speaking on various studies that suggest T cells play an important role in fighting off viruses, Dr Kutub stated, "T cell response analysis has been not seriously investigated, but I think there is a big role of T cells particularly the helper T cells and the establishment of the helper T cells in the subject, because, these T cells will help B cells to make the antibody and these T cells can be cross-reactive also where they can be long lasting T cell immunity and it is very critical that we establish a good cellular immunity with the current with the current vaccine that we have."
The scientist further hailed Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and asserted, "I mean this is a uniquely Indian product, which I would like to congratulate the Indian company and the Indian government for moving in this direction for the vision of our Prime Minister. So this is a very good vaccine and we have seen the data is coming out from the clinical studies about the safety of this in the very young up to 2 yrs of age".
(With ANI inputs)
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