Bengaluru, April 12 (IANS): Predictive studies opine that the 4th wave of the Covid-19 will start in June-July and last till September, stated Karnataka Health Minister K. Sudhakar on Tuesday. "Karnataka is prepared to face it," he added.
He said that there is no need to worry as of now. The new XE variant of Covid-19 is prominent in 8 countries and people arriving from that country are being screened, he said. Answering a question, he said that the mask is still essential and there will be no relaxation but said that there is no need to worry about the 4th wave. 5,000 children in the age group 6-12 who are not yet eligible for vaccine will be said.
Speaking about India's vaccination progress, Sudhakar pointed out that many vaccines previously given to kids reached India a long time after they were available elsewhere in the world. "I don't want to bring politics in this collective fight against pandemic, but people should know this. During the last 70 years when other parties ruled, vaccines came much later to India compared to the rest of the world."
Hepatitis B vaccine was introduced across the world in 1985 but came to India only by 2005. Compared to the rest of the world, the BCG vaccine came 20-25 years later and the Japanese Encephalitis vaccine came 45 years later. However, the first Covid case was found on January 30, 2020 and within a year, by January 16, 2021 India had introduced the vaccine, Sudhakar said.
Today, 10 vaccines have been approved and are available in India and it is a proud thing that among them is one home grown vaccine, the Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech. Other vaccines are Covishield vaccine developed by Pune based Serum Institute of India who had tied up with Oxford University and AstraZeneca, Corbevax, Zydus Cadila which is the world's first DNA vaccine, Sudhakar said.
The Minister said that India approached Pfizer and Moderna initially expecting that our vaccines may take time. "They agreed to provide the vaccine. But they refuse to take any responsibility or liability if something happens to our people. Our government was not willing to compromise with people's lives, and we decided to not provide the license unless they agreed to take liability."
Speaking about Karnataka, he said, 10.54 crore vaccines are administered in the state. The second dose of the vaccine has been taken by 98 per cent of the people and another 32 lakh people are yet to take the second dose. He urged people to take the second dose and also the precautionary dose at the earliest.