{"id":78797,"date":"2021-01-29T15:20:22","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T09:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=78797"},"modified":"2021-01-29T18:24:29","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T12:54:29","slug":"how-should-india-handle-the-new-virus-variants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-should-india-handle-the-new-virus-variants\/","title":{"rendered":"How should India handle the new virus variants?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/viruses-their-variants-and-vaccines-7164582\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">click here<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Syllabus: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">GS 3<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Synopsis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mutation of the coronavirus has become a new threat for the world. India must take precautionary measures to deal with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Introduction\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged independently in several countries and the virus is changing very quickly.\u00a0 If it continues to change, currently available vaccines will become ineffective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Why do viruses mutate?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the viruses carry a genetic code in the form of RNA or DNA. The DNA is replicated as the cells multiply and this process may <\/span><b>cause random errors in the new DNA.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Errors in DNA can be corrected by the enzymes present in the cell. However, RNA doesn&#8217;t contain enzymes, thus errors caused in RNA cannot be corrected. It causes <\/span><b>more genetic changes (mutations)in RNA than DNA viruses.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>How are vaccines tested for efficiency against emerging variants?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Indirect tests are conducted in labs. <\/b>It will<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0find if variant virus escapes antibodies developed after natural infection or vaccination.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Antibodies that neutralize the original virus are tested on the variant viruses.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Are the emerging variants vulnerable to vaccines?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The emerging variants from <\/span><b>South Africa could pose a challenge to current vaccines<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Not enough information is available yet for the Brazil variant.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the studies have <\/span><b>only tested antibody responses<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Vaccines also increase cellular immunity to eliminate infection which has not been tested.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The evidence currently does not suggest that vaccines are failing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, Moderna and Pfizer\/BioNTech have agreed that their vaccines have had reduced protection against the South African variant. Both the companies are now working on developing new vaccines to fight these variants.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What steps should India take in this situation?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is no local transmission of the new variants in India until now. Only the UK variant viruses have been found in travellers coming to India.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Firstly,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> India should <\/span><b>strictly implement masks and limit crowds. It should also<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> do the contact tracing of people infected with the new UK variant.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Secondly,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> India should also put <\/span><b>a ban on travel from South Africa and Brazil<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> just like the US did. India must also be cautious of people with a history of travel to South Africa since October 2020, and Brazil since December 2020.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Thirdly,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the most efficient way to catch emerging variants is <\/span><b>increased genomic surveillance<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. So far, there are only about 5,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from India in public databases, which accounts for only 0.05 percent of confirmed cases.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>T<\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he setting up of an inter-ministerial group -Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (<\/span><b>INSACOG<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) to increase genomic surveillance is a step in the right direction. India should take more such steps.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: click here Syllabus: GS 3 Synopsis: Mutation of the coronavirus has become a new threat for the world. India must take precautionary measures to deal with it. Introduction\u00a0 New SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged independently in several countries and the virus is changing very quickly.\u00a0 If it continues to change, currently available vaccines will become&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-should-india-handle-the-new-virus-variants\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How should India handle the new virus variants?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":79012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1315,1289,1456],"class_list":["post-78797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-st_1","tag-soc_0","tag-soc_01","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Corona-virus.jpg?fit=525%2C350&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700773018,"cached_date":1704935094},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}