The third wave of the Covid pandemic, driven by the Delta and Omicron variants is currently wreaking havoc in countries like the United States and India. As the Omicron variant is less lethal, several medical experts believe that we are moving towards the endgame of the pandemic. However, Anurag Agrawal, Director, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, CSIR, during an interaction with The Indian Express suggested that the pandemic cannot be eradicated completely, as it has hosts outside humans.
Covid pandemic cannot be eradicated completely
During the talk, Agarwal said that the Covid pandemic will become less severe in the coming years, and as more people will gain immunity, this virus will be incapable of killing humans vigorously, unless a dangerous mutation happens.
"The destruction and difficulty it causes will become much less, unless the virus changes very significantly, which is always a possibility but not an immediate high possibility. SARS-CoV-2 doesn't mutate a lot but it is an RNA virus, so it mutates more than many DNA viruses," said Agarwal.
According to Agarwal, the presence of animal hosts will make it difficult to completely eradicate the virus from the planet.
"With a larger pool of hosts in human beings, the virus is getting a chance to optimize itself and mutate. Besides, to eradicate something, it is important that it does not have a host outside humans. SARS-CoV-2 has found animal reservoirs, where it can keep evolving further," added Agarwal.
Omicron cannot be called a natural vaccine
Agarwal made it clear that the Omicron variant of the Covid pandemic cannot be considered a natural vaccine.
"To call something a vaccine, the side effects must be very low, comparable to vaccines. With our current vaccines, we expect something to go wrong in one in a lakh or maybe 50,000 cases. Now, look at the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of Delta and Omicron. Delta's was somewhere around two in a 1,000. Omicron is 60 to 70 percent lower than that, in certain age groups it might be only 25-50 percent lower. And you realize that is not a very safe prospect. In Delhi, there are roughly 40 people dying these days, of which half would be incidental. If you had a vaccine, which was seeing 20 people dying every day, you would stop that vaccine, never use it. That is why calling Omicron a natural vaccine is not right," added Agarwal.
Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) had warned that the next variant of Covid that may come after Omicron will be definitely more contagious. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's Covid-19 technical lead predicted that the next variant will be more transmissible as it needs to overtake what is currently circulating. She also added that it is impossible to predict whether the upcoming Covid variant will be deadly.
