Existing vaccines effective for at least one year: Virologist

Bengaluru: The existing Covid-19 vaccines are effective for a minimum one year as per available evidence and if more troubling variants don’t emerge, the protection may last for a couple of years, virologist Dr V Ravi, who is a member of Karnataka’s Covid task force committee, said.

“Vaccinated persons will get protection for two to three years if there are no further variants of concern after one year,” he said during a webinar, ‘Covid — Third Wave, Vaccination and Protection’, organised by the Karnataka Women Journalists’ Association. Further research is required to determine the exact duration of vaccines’ effectiveness, he added.

Ravi believes regular processing of a portion of Covid positive swab samples for genetic sequencing will help identify new variants. Stressing that every previous pandemic had multiple waves, he said a third wave was inevitable in India and preparations must begin now to tackle it.

As per Ravi, infection waves generally occur three to five months apart and people who don’t get vaccinated in the next six months will be susceptible to Covid. Children will be a particularly vulnerable group in coming wave.