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Tag: Randeep Guleria

  • Equal distribution of COVID vaccines is need of the hour: AIIMS director Randeep Guleria

    By Express News Service

    NEW DELHI:  All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director Randeep Guleria on Monday called for an equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines across the globe, saying “nobody is safe until everyone is safe”. He highlighted that if it does not happen, coronavirus will continue to mutate.

    Speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day lecture series organised by the JNU’s Centre for Canadian, US, and Latin American Studies, Guleria lauded the country’s vaccination programme. “India has done remarkably well as far as our vaccine programme is concerned… It is something that we should be proud of. Almost 97 per cent of Indians aged 18 and above have received the first dose of vaccine. This is a remarkable achievement,” he said.

    He added, “It is important that there should be an equitable distribution of vaccines all around the world. No one is safe unless everyone is safe.” The two-day lecture series on ‘COVID-19 and the engaged democracies with special reference to Canada and India’ has been funded by Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (SICI).

    The event was also attended by JNU Vice Chancellor Santishree D Pandit and SICI Director Prachi Kaul. Addressing the event, the AIIMS director noted that the virus, which has raged on for 26 months and claimed 6 million lives worldwide, will gradually become an endemic.

    He also pointed out that the pandemic has impacted every sphere of life – healthcare, economy, education, tourism among others. “After the first COVID-19 case, it has been a roller coaster ride.  We know sooner or later that this pandemic will end,” he said. 

    Asserting that the World Health Organisation has deemed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats, Guleria said that data from various studies shows that compared to the western countries, there is not much vaccine hesitancy in India.

  • ‘Third wave can be bigger than second wave if all curbs are lifted’: AIIMS Director sounds warning bell

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Waning immunity, the emergence of a more transmissible coronavirus variant capable of escaping the immunity shield and lockdown relaxations can be the likely causes of a possible third wave of COVID-19, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria said Thursday.

    Speaking at an event, he said the third wave can be mitigated by following Covid-appropriate behaviour such as maintaining social distancing, using masks, and taking vaccine.

    He said several studies and modelling have been conducted to project the trajectory of a possible third wave of the pandemic under different scenarios.

    “One such model from an IIT shows that if all restrictions are lifted and if a virus (variant) is also able to escape immunity then the next wave can be bigger than the second wave.”

    “If some restrictions are kept and the virus also remains stable then cases will not be much and if we keep more restrictions then cases will further reduce,” he said.

    Guleria said even if new variants emerge, the available vaccines can be tweaked.

    Guleria said the third wave of COVID-19 is being seen in other countries but hospitalisation has come down, indicating that the vaccines are working.

    Listing possible reasons that can precipitate the third wave, Guleria said waning immunity — which restores previously exposed individuals to a susceptible state — the emergence of a new more transmissible variant of the virus capable of escaping immunity, and relaxation of current lockdowns can be the likely causes.

    He said that apart from Covaxin, Covishield and Sputnik V, several other vaccines are in the pipeline in the country.

  • Availability of COVID vaccine for kids will pave way for school reopening: AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Making COVID-19 vaccine available for children will be a milestone achievement and pave the way for reopening of schools and resumption of outdoor activities for them, AIIMS Chief Dr Randeep Guleria has said.

    He said the data of phase two and three trial of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin on two to 18 years age group is expected by September.

    The vaccine can be available for children in India around that time following approval from the drug regulator, he said.

    “If the Pfizer vaccine gets approval before that, then it can also be an option for children,” Dr Guleria told PTI on Saturday.

    According to a senior government official, pharmaceutical major Zydus Cadila is also likely to soon apply to the Drugs Controller General of India for emergency use authorisation for its COVID-19 vaccine ZyCoV-D, which it claims can be given to both adults and children.

    “So, if the Zydus vaccine gets approval, it will be another option,” Dr Guleria said.

    ALSO WATCH: How Mumbai, India’s most crowded city, beat the odds, and the coronavirus

    He stressed that though children mostly have mild infections of COVID-19 and some even are asymptomatic, they can be carriers of the infection.

    Underscoring that there has been a major loss in studies in the last one-and-half years on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, the AIIMS chief said, “Schools have to be reopened and vaccination can play an important role in that.”

    Vaccination is the way out from the pandemic, he said.

    The government has recently cautioned that even though COVID-19 has not impacted children greatly till now, that can increase if there is a change in the behaviour of the virus or in epidemiology dynamics.

    It said that preparations are being made to deal with any such situation.

    A national expert group has been formed to review COVID-19 infections among children and approach the pandemic in a new way and reinforce the nation’s preparedness for it.

    On the issue of vaccinating children, NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul recently said, “Child cohort is not a small one. My rough guess is that if it is between 12 to 18 years, this itself is about 13 to 14 crore population for which we will need about 25-26 crore doses.”

    He further shared that not only Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, Zydus Cadila’s vaccine is also being tested on children.

    “So when Zydus comes for licensure soon, maybe we have enough data to take a view on whether the vaccine can be given in children,” Paul said.

  • Non-adherence to COVID-19 norms, virulent strains could be behind surge in infections: AIIMS chief

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: People not adhering to COVID-appropriate behaviour and the circulation of highly infectious strains of SARS-COV-2 could be the primary reasons behind the surge in coronavirus infections in India, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria said on Monday.

    He also warned that if the situation is not reversed, then the galloping infection rate will eventually cause a huge strain on the country’s healthcare system.

    He sought stricter enforcement of COVID-appropriate behaviour on the ground level by the administration and authorities.

    “Around February, when cases started to decrease, people became lax towards following COVID-appropriate behaviour as they thought the virus had become ineffective.”

    “People are taking the disease lightly now. If you go out, you see that marketplaces, restaurants and shopping malls are crowded and full of people and these all are super-spreader events,” Guleria said.

    Earlier, if one sick person was able to infect around 30 per cent of their contacts, this time those getting the disease are infecting a larger number of people, he said.

    “So, the rate of spread of the infection is fast possibly due to the highly infectious and transmissible strains circulating,” he added.

    Various strains of SARS-CoV-2, including the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants, are circulating in India and have been termed as highly transmissible by experts.

    Guleria said the entire humanity is going through a difficult time and “unless it is important, people should not venture out. Also, it has to be ensured that there is no gathering and stricter enforcement of COVID-appropriate behaviour has to be ensured”.

    “We may lose the gains we have made so far if we do not pay heed now,” and the situation may completely get out of control, he said.

    “If the situation is not reversed, then the galloping infection rate will eventually cause a huge strain on the healthcare system also,” he stressed.

    The AIIMS chief also urged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

    Though the vaccine will not protect a person from contracting the infection, it will prevent its progression to a severe form and thereby reduce mortality, Guleria said.

    But wearing a mask and following other protocols is equally important, he added.

    India on Monday recorded the biggest single-day jump of 1,68,912 fresh COVID-19 cases that took the infection tally to 1,35,27,717, according to Union health ministry data.

    Ten states — Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan — have shown a steep rise in daily cases, accounting for 83.02 per cent of the infections reported in a day.

  • COVID-19 vaccine should be able to give protection for 8-10 months: AIIMS director

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The COVID-19 vaccine should be able to give good protection from the infection for eight to ten months, AIIMS director Randeep Guleria said on Saturday.

    He also said that no major side-effect of the vaccine has been recorded.

    “The COVID-19 vaccine should be able to give good protection from the infection for eight to ten months and maybe, even more,” Guleria said at an event organised by the IPS (Central) Association.

    He said the biggest reason for the surge in cases is that people feel the pandemic is over and they are not following COVID-appropriate behaviour.

    “There are multiple reasons for the surge, but the main reason is that there is change in people’s attitude and they feel coronavirus is over.

    People should still restrict non-essential travel for some more time,” the official asserted.

    NITI Aayog member (Health) V K Paul said the chain of transmission has to be stopped and for that vaccine is one tool but another is containment and surveillance strategy.

    “Not following COVID-19 behaviour and laxity is major reason for the surge,” he said.

    Responding to a question on vaccinating more people, Paul said the issue is vaccines are limited and that is why, prioritisation has been done.

    “If we had unlimited supply, we would open the vaccination for everyone. That is the reason, not everyone, is getting vaccinated. Most countries in the world are not able to go beyond priority group because of this reason,” he said.

    The NITI Aayog member also said that the highest mortality was seen among people with co-morbidities and older age groups.

    “These people must not delay taking the vaccine. So the message is that they need it more than others. That is the reason they have been prioritised for getting the COVID-19 vaccine,” he said.

    Talking about the effectiveness of the available COVID-19 vaccines, Covaxin and Covishield, Guleria said, “If we look at the two vaccines, they produce equal antibodies and are very robust.

    We should take the vaccine available to us because both are equally effective in terms of efficacy and long-term protection.

    Over four crore people in the country have been vaccinated against the disease till now. Under the current phase of the inoculation drive, people above 60 years of age and those in the 45-59 years age bracket with co-morbidities, are being vaccinated.

  • Herd immunity against COVID-19 difficult to achieve: AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Herd immunity is “very difficult” to achieve and one should not think of it in “practical terms” in India, especially in the times of “variant strains” of COVID-19 and “waning immunity”, claimed AIIMS director Randeep Guleria on Sunday.

    Guleria was speaking at the ongoing edition of Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) in a session on his book “Till We Win: India’s Fight Against The Covid-19 Pandemic” — co-authored by public policy and health systems expert Chandrakant Lahariya and renowned vaccine researcher and virologist Gagandeep Kang.

    “Herd immunity is something that is going to be very, very difficult to achieve and it is something one should not really think of in practical terms because the variant strains and varying immunity with times can lead to a chance where people may have reinfection or get infection again,” the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director said.

    “And one should also remember that large number of people have had mild infections and we do know that those with mild infection tend to have less antibodies production, their antibodies tend to wane over a period of time,” he added.

    READ| India witnesses rise in COVID-19 active cases

    Experts say herd immunity is said to have been developed in a population segment if at least 50-60 per cent of those are found to have the presence of antibodies in a sero-prevalence survey.

    Herd immunity implies that in any set of people in a community, after becoming affected by the virus, a lot many of them become immune to it, on account of antibodies developed in response to it.

    And, hence, such people become a protective layer between the infected person and unaffected people, thereby breaking the chain of viral transmission.

    Guleria here also gave the example of Brazilian city Manaus which even after having achieved the herd immunity in October is now battling the second COVID-19 wave.

    “They (Brazil) had claimed that they got heard immunity with almost 70 per cent of the population being protected because of the past infection, and yet because of the Brazilian variant and waning immunity a large number of people got infected again.

    And now they are in a very bad situation because of resurgence of cases,” he noted.

    Here, he also asserted that no sero surveys done so far has suggested India being “anyway near” achieving the herd immunity.

    Over 21 per cent of the population, aged 10 years and above, showed evidence of past exposure to COVID-19 in the Indian Council of Medical Research”s (ICMR) latest national sero-survey out on February 4.

    Stressing on the importance of vaccination, which he said is essential in India’s fight against the coronavirus, he said they too will change with time tackling not only the “emerging variants” but giving more robust immunity lasting for a longer period of time.

    “What we have today is not the only vaccine, we will have better vaccines as time moves on and as research moves on.

    But right now we should take what we have if we want to really make sure that the situation in our country does not deteriorate,” he added.

    The JLF, now in its 14th edition, features over 300 speakers and performers representing around 25 Indian and 18 international languages and over 23 nationalities.

    Some of the big names making it to the festival this year include the likes of American linguist Noam Chomsky, 2020 Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart, Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Malala Yousafzai, Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates, and actor-author Priyanka Chopra.

  • COVID-19 vaccine could be available in open market by 2021 end: AIIMS Director

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: Coronavirus vaccines might be available in the open market by end of the year only when prime targeted people are covered and there is an equivalence of supply and demand, said Dr. Randeep Guleria, Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) after receiving the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday.

    The chief of the country’s premier medical institute Dr. Guleria was administered with the first jab of the COVID-19 vaccine on January 16, a day the biggest vaccination drive was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, against coronavirus disease.

    “Vaccine will be available in the open market only when prime targets — people to be vaccinated — are covered. And there has to be equivalence in supply and demand. Hopefully, there would be such a situation by year-end or before that. Then, there may be a likelihood of vaccine to come to the open market,” Guleria told ANI here.

    READ| 37.5 per cent beneficiaries given second COVID vaccine shot

    Sharing his experience of his past 28 days (a time duration for the second dose), Dr. Guleria said: “Today I took the second dose of Covaxin vaccine and I haven’t found any side effect from the first dose. I didn’t face any difficulty. I would urge people not to fear the vaccine and it is totally safe. People should come out and take the vaccine. This is essential if we want to come out of the pandemic.”

    He highlighted that pandemic is still not over and India is in a good position but people should not have vaccine hesitancy and get inoculated.

    “Right now our situation is fine and many might believe that in India pandemic case is less but I would say this is our window of opportunity to get the vaccine as the pandemic is still not over and the situation can change anytime. As we have seen in Brazil, Europe, South Africa and the United Kingdom lockdown has been imposed again as the case spiked. We should maintain the present situation in the country as it is necessary,” the AIIMS director added.

    Talking about vaccine hesitancy among the people, Dr. Guleria said many have been vaccinated and data also reflects that these vaccines are safe.

    “Vaccine hesitancy is understandable as people could have some doubts whether the vaccine is safe or not but so many days have passed and many have got the jab. There are data, which suggest that vaccine is safe so hesitancy should be avoided,” he added.

  • Harega Corona, AIIMS director told that vaccine can come in India by this month

    While the whole country is waiting for the corona vaccine, on Thursday, Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), told a good news. Please tell that Guleria says that the corona vaccine may come in late December or early January. This means that, now even in the month of December, vaccine can be found to deal with the corona epidemic. Let us know that in addition to the hope of getting a vaccine in India, AIIMS director said that, in the next two-three months, the whole process of vaccination will start. In its statement about the vaccine, AIIMS director stated that, “It is good news, that a vaccine has been recognized, it is a big incentive for all vaccine manufacturers.”

  • Emergency use authorization of Covid-19 vaccine likely by Dec end: AIIMS director

    Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS Delhi, has said that in India, there are COVID-19 vaccines which are in their final trial stage.  Speaking to news agency ANI, he said that he is hopeful that by the end of this month or early next month, emergency use authorization from Indian regulatory authorities with be given to a vaccine, which can then be used to vaccinate the general public.

    Once booster dose is given, vaccine will give good amount of anti-body production & will start giving protection. This will last for many months giving protection for a significant time when numbers will be less. We need to see type of immunity vaccine gives: Dr Randeep Guleria

    In beginning, vaccine won’t be available in sufficient doses to give to everyone. We need a priority list to see that we vaccinate those who’ve high chances of dying due to Covid. Elderly, people with comorbidities & front line workers should be vaccinated 1st: Dr Randeep Guleria

  • Corona vaccine needs -70 degree temperature, cold storage challenge before government

    We have spent almost a whole year under the shadow of the Corona virus. In such a situation, everyone’s eyes are set on the corona vaccine. In India too, the number of Kovid patients has crossed 86 lakh. Apart from the patients, there is a big problem facing the Government of India. The system is facing a big challenge in the preparation of vaccine storage in the country.

    The special thing is that the corona vaccine requires a temperature of -70 ° C for storage. Dr. AIIMS director Randeep Guleria says that keeping the vaccine in such a low temperature is a big challenge in India. This challenge is especially big in rural areas of the country. Because it is very difficult to prepare such a cold environment in these areas. It is worth noting that Pfizer, which has gained an edge in the vaccine race, has announced that their vaccine has been effective 90 percent.

    Media reports show that preparations have begun regarding the cold chain in the country. At the same time, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is questioning the government’s preparedness for vaccine storage. Rahul has claimed that the transportation of the vaccine requires a temperature of -70 and no such facility is available in the country. However, media reports indicate that no agreement has been reached between the US company Pfizer and German company Biotech on this vaccine, but the central government is in the process of preparing it. The health ministry has indicated this on Tuesday.