Patna, Oct 16 (FN Agency) Amid a growing number of breakthrough COVID infections, many reasons, including variants like Delta and Lambda, waning immunity and immuno compromised people with cancer or AIDS, have come to the fore. National Immunisation Programme, Advisor- Dr Naresh Purohit said in a release here today that it was all because of the new emerging variants.They are said to be highly transmissible and may be able to evade vaccine-induced immunity.Given that COVID vaccines were developed in respect to the original COVID strain, new variants may dodge the antibodies provided by the vaccines. He opined that as long as COVID is circulating in the community, infections in fully vaccinated people “cannot be completely eliminated.”
Not only are fully vaccinated people capable of becoming infected—developing so-called “breakthrough” cases (usually mild or asymptomatic)— but now there’s evidence that even the vaccinated can pass the virus on to others, something that hadn’t been seen until Delta came along. Sharing his concern on this issue WHO-Covid19 technical lead Dr Purohit said all infections that occur among fully vaccinated people 15 days after the second jab are considered breakthrough infections as per WHO stipulation.
It means about 20-25% are breakthrough infections and this is set to increase further as the number of vaccinated people increases. He pointed that the breakthrough infection is especially high among healthcare workers. Besides, many more people have been developing adverse effects (side effects) due to vaccines. Citing a recent report published in the Public Health England journal Dr Purohit said that between February and June 2021 , more vaccinated people in England died of COVID than those unvaccinated. In fact, 163 of 237 people (63.4 per cent) who died due to the Delta variant had been vaccinated.