India's current Covid surge not leading to severe illness, deaths: ICMR chief


New Delhi, Jan 20 (IANS): The current upsurge in Covid cases is not causing severe illness and deaths following the high uptake of Covid vaccines, Indian Council of Medical Research chief Dr Balram Bhargava said on Thursday.

Adressing the media on current Covid surge, he said that the vaccine remains beneficial and deaths have considerably reduced as compared to the second Covid surge .

"Vaccines have remained beneficial in India. Deaths have considerably reduced due to vaccinations. In this third surge of Covid-19, we are currently not witnessing severe illness and deaths due to high vaccination uptake," he said.

However, those with comorbidities must monitor their health and avoid any complications, he added.

"Vaccine prevents death and therefore is a must. Deaths are very low in this wave because of very high uptake of Covid vaccines which is 94 per cent of first dose in adults and 72 per cent full dose in the country," Dr Bhargava said.

About the Covid tests, he said that an increasing trend of home covid tests has been observed in this current surge. "In these 20 days of the year, we have seen 2 lakhs home tests," he added.

NITI Aayog's Member, Health, Dr V.K. Paul, said that the overall 16 per cent positivity in the country is very high. Some states even have reported over 50 per cent positivity like Goa. Kerala has 42 per cent, while Rajasthan has 31 per cent positivity rate. Himachal Pradesh has around 30 per cent Covid positivity rate.

Emphasising the role of vaccination to prevent infection, Dr Paul said that mortality has largely been reduced but the comorbid patients are still major concern.

"In relatively low mortality phase of pandic, comorbidities are most vulnerable, so precautions doses must be administered to the eligible population," he added.

Around 10 per cent population over 60 plus are still due for the first dose, while 25 per cent are due for the second dose of vaccines, he added while asking to get the vaccine administered on the time. He also asked healthcare workers and frontline workers to come for their precautionary doses.

 

  

Top Stories

Comment on this article


Leave a Comment

Title: India's current Covid surge not leading to severe illness, deaths: ICMR chief



You have 2000 characters left.

Disclaimer:

Please write your correct name and email address. Kindly do not post any personal, abusive, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, discriminatory or unlawful or similar comments. Daijiworld.com will not be responsible for any defamatory message posted under this article.

Please note that sending false messages to insult, defame, intimidate, mislead or deceive people or to intentionally cause public disorder is punishable under law. It is obligatory on Daijiworld to provide the IP address and other details of senders of such comments, to the authority concerned upon request.

Hence, sending offensive comments using daijiworld will be purely at your own risk, and in no way will Daijiworld.com be held responsible.