Omicron threat: Can't rely on UK data to formulate booster strategy; no need to panic as yet, says Dr Gagandeep Kang

Omicron cases likely to rise in January; experts say need to improve testing

Dr Kang said our healthcare infrastructure is not as likely to be overwhelmed. "

On the need for a booster strategy, Dr Kang said the government must not rely on data from the United Kingdom, where the booster plan is based on how it was affected by the delta wave.

"The important thing to remember is that in the UK, they saw the delta wave after they had vaccinated the bulk of their population. In India, it was the other way around. People had the delta variant for the most part first before they got vaccinated. So it's not possible for us to directly take the UK data and use that to justify boosters in India, we need Indian data to make decisions," she said.

The microbiologist said the fastest way to formulate a COVID-19 booster dose strategy is by taking a look at vaccine efficacy.

"The fastest way to look at results that can help make decisions about boosters is to look at vaccine effectiveness data by age and by vaccine, which means that if we have had over a billion doses of vaccine given out in the country, we should know that when someone tests positive is ill or hospitalised or dies, we have their vaccination history," Dr Kang said.

She explained that this will allows us to do what is called a "test negative design" for assessing vaccine effectiveness. "That is real world data that tells us whether vaccines are failing or not. And this is the kind of data that the rest of the world has relied on to make decisions about boosters," Dr Kang added.

Pointing out that India does not have a vaccine mix like other countries. "In India, we do not have the mix of vaccines that other countries have. We do have AstraZeneca (Covishield) that other countries use, but we do not have another vaccine that is the equivalent of the Covaxin. There are other inactivated vaccines but none of them have the same adjuvant. So we can't really take exactly the data from other countries and use that to make decisions," Dr Kang said.

She emphasised that a third shot of the vaccine is a must for the immune-compromised sections of the population.   On paediatric COVID-19 vaccination, Dr Kang said we need a larger data set to initiate the drive.