A World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist on Monday said Covid-19 vaccines are showing signs of declined efficacy against the Delta variant of coronavirus. Though the vaccines are effective t preventing severe illness and death, a report said.
According to the report, there might be a "constellation of mutations" which means vaccines are likely to lose their potency against fighting the coronavirus.
The Delta Variant, which was originally detected in India in October last year, is said to be highly infectious. According to separate studies conducted by AIIMS (Delhi) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), it was suggested that the Delta variant can escape antibodies from one or both the doses of Covidshield and Covaxin.
WHO has listed the fourth variant as highly transmissible variant of the virus.
The Delta variant, scientifically termed as B.1.617.2 of the COVID-19 infections, refers to the merging of two mutations of a virus strain that go on to form a third, super infectious strain. The B.1.617 variant contains mutations from two separate virus variants, namely E484Q and L452R.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday warned of a "rough winter" ahead even though things may be "looking good" for July 19 to be the so-called "terminus point" marking an end to all lockdown restrictions in the country.
The Delta variant, B.1.617.2, is 50 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant, B1.117, first discovered in the UK, say researchers from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB).
