Vax plus masks must to fight Delta, Delta Plus
The Delta variant of the Coronavirus has been found to be a major factor for breakthrough infections — Covid infection in persons who have received one or both doses of the vaccine. This was found among healthcare workers at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in South Delhi.
Vaccination of the hospital’s 1,800 employees began on January 16, the first day of India’s inoculation campaign, and by April-end ILBS had administered the jab to nearly 1,600. Despite the Covishield injection, hospital officials said, nearly 10 per cent of the staff tested positive for the infection.
The infection rate was significantly higher in doctors and nurses than in other hospital staff, possibly due to higher exposure. The worrisome observation has come amid warnings from experts, including from the World Health Organisation who have maintained that vaccination along with safety measures are necessary when it comes to fighting the Delta and Delta Plus coronavirus variants.
“Vaccination plus masks, because just a vaccine is not enough with ‘Delta’. We need to make an effort over a short period of time, otherwise there would be a lockdown,” said Melita Vujnovic, WHO representative to Russia, on a news channel.
When a genomic analysis of the swab samples of the infected healthcare workers was completed recently by Dr Rajesh Pandey and Dr Anurag Agarwal at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), they found that 70 per cent of the infections were caused by the Delta variant (B.1.617.2), a variant of concern that became the predominant cause of Covid cases in Delhi from March onwards.