Herd immunity not for India: Health Minister Harsh Vardhan

To curb the covid-19 infection, India will solemnly have to depend on a vaccine achieving herd immunity is not an option for a population as big as ours, Union Health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday.

The Health Minister was citing second sero-survey of Indian Council of Medical Research which is actively researching on reports of reinfection.

In a social media interaction with his followers on 'Sunday Samvaad', the minister said, "the soon to be released second sero-survey indications are that we are far from having achieved any kind of herd immunity which necessitated that all of us should continue following appropriate behaviour."

"ICMR is actively investigating and researching reports of reinfection and although the number of reinfection cases is negligible at this moment, the government is fully seized of the importance of the matter,” he further said.

Herd immunity is achieved by exposing a considerable population to the virus in which the majority of people naturally acquire immunity to infection. However, most importantly herd immunity can work only when there is some vaccination also.

“The first sero survey of May 2020 revealed that the nationwide prevalence of novel coronavirus infection was only 0.73 per cent,” the health minister also said.

“ICMR’s sero survey report should not create a sense of complacency in people as usually herd immunity is achieved when about 60-70% of a country’s population has developed antibodies against the virus. Since that is not the case for us yet, we must know that a significantly large population in India is susceptible to getting infected, which is why it is extremely important to observe Covid-19 appropriate behaviour,” the minister added.

Vardhan stated that states/UTs have also been advised to lower the prices of COVID-19 tests. “In the early days of the pandemic, as the kits were imported, the price tended to be high. But now, supplies of testing kits have stabilised and domestic production of these kits have commenced,” the minister said.

The health minister also said in the last few months since outbreak of the pandemic, India have made enormous progress in the manufacturing of PPEs, Testing kits and many medical devices.