India: WHO warns that the pandemic “is multiplying …

India recorded 4,092 coronavirus deaths on Sunday and more than 400,000 new cases in the past 24 hours. It is second consecutive day when the country exceeds 4000 dead, a record that comes amid a catastrophic epidemic and a slow vaccination campaign.

In this context, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under pressure to declare nationwide quarantine, a measure that many states have already adopted but that the official it was delayed due to the high cost to the economy that would entail.

India is the second most affected country in the world by the coronavirus, only after the United States, with a cumulative total of 22 million cases and 240,000 deaths, according to figures from the Ministry of Health.

However, as the United States conducts an advanced vaccination campaign, with over 32% of the population vaccinated, India, which has a population of over 1,300 million, it barely vaccinated 2.3% of the population.

New variant

According to local media, India contained the first wave of infections relatively well, but it plunged into a second strong wave from the end of February. This increase was particularly affected by the new virus variant (B.1.617), which is more transmissible.

As said this Sunday, the Chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), pediatrician and Indian researcher Soumya Swaminathan, this mutation has characteristics that could make vaccines less effective.

Variant B.1.617, first detected in October, could be classified by the WHO in the list of those considered “more dangerous than the original coronavirus”, because “has mutations that increase transmission and can also potentially make it resistant to antibodies developed by vaccination or natural contamination“Said Swaminathan.

The danger of new changes

However, Swaminathan pointed out, the arrival of the second wave is not only justified by the appearance of the new variant but also by the social relaxation, massive religious festivities and elections that took place in various states.

In a country as large as India, transmission of the virus can continue silently for months. “These first signs (of contagions) were ignored until (the transmissions) reached a vertical take-off point,” he said in this regard.

This has made the pandemic more difficult to control because “it affects thousands of people and multiplies at a rate that is very difficult to stop“Swaminathan reflects.

According to the specialist, vaccination would not be enough to regain control of the health situation since “it would take months, even years, to reach a rate of 70 to 80%” of the vaccinated population.

This is why restrictive measures are also necessary to contain contagions and avoid the appearance of new variants, because “the more the virus replicates, spreads and is transmitted, the more the danger of mutations and adaptations increases”, stressed the scientist.

“Variants that suffer from a large number of mutations could eventually become resistant to the vaccines we have today.“insisted Swaminathan, after noticing that” this it will be a problem for everyone “.