New Delhi Scientists from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) are studying the long-term memory of COVID-19 vaccination in the human body, including the quality and durability of the jabs.
The research results will have an impact on future vaccine dosing strategies, including booster doses.
DBT Secretary Rajesh Gokhale said: “Given the large scale of COVID-19 vaccination in the country, the aim of the study is to understand the long-term immune responses in the population. Memory studies are comparatively complex studies in contrast to antibody studies, and include cell-based treatments that require isolation of cells, tracking of cells, antigens and then observing the cells in what is called a cellular response. They need to standardize essays, isolate viruses, and look at infected and non-infected populations. reaction of one vaccine to another.”
The study is also expected to help the government design a public health response to future pandemics and viruses.
“We need to understand the long-term importance of our vaccinations. All the vaccines we had before the Kovid-19 vaccination were studied for 4-5 years and then decided. So, we need to keep the vaccination in our body in the long term. A good study needs to be done on this to know memory. We need to know what is hyper-transmission; then, how does it work? How good is the memory and how good is the quality and durability? We are taking vaccination data for this and several laboratories under the Department of Biotechnology are doing the study.”
India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage tops 1.97 billion doses.
However, so far only 7% of people aged 18-60 years and 40% of people over 60 have been given the booster jab.
“Never before in this world had such a large amount of vaccination been done in such a short time. So, it is a great way to study how to evaluate the immune response that occurs in the population. And this study could provide data for many other viruses and vaccination strategies. This has huge implications in terms of understanding vaccination about what is being done right now,” Gokhale said.
Talking about the recent spurt in COVID-19 cases, the scientist said that, “As of now, there is no new variant coming out and smaller recombinant versions are also very less. All variants are very similar in pattern.”
India reported 11,739 new cases and 25 deaths in the last 24 hours.
The government said the active caseload exceeded 92,576, bringing the total number of cases to 43 million and deaths to 524,999. Unofficial estimates are far higher.
When asked why the increase is happening, the DBT chief said, “These are sporadic incidents and they keep happening. Because then there would be only spatiality. The endemic would be when you have a very strong T-cell response in the nasal airway.”
“The nasal airway response in our country is slowly increasing and continues to do so. It will eventually take the pattern of the flu. People should continue to wear masks and follow the appropriate behavior of COVID-19.”