The variant has been found in Maharashtra and among Indian travellers, according to the World Health Organization. In an interview, Gokhale noted that the widespread exposure to covid-19 has made the population susceptible to various viruses, including the seasonal flu. The department of biotechnology, he said, is developing India’s first indigenous influenza vaccine, targeting a 60% efficacy against all variants, including H1N1 (swine flu) and H2N3 viruses. As part of the plan, the department has initiated three funded programmes and three international collaborations—one with the European Union and two with the Netherlands. Several multinational companies have developed variant influenza vaccines, but their efficacy is limited to 28-30%, he said. Edited Excerpts:
Do we have any information about how the covid-19 pandemic originated? Some claim it escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Are we any closer to the truth?
Nobody will know the exact answer about the origin of covid-19 virus. The way I look at it is—it’s a combination of both. Because many experiments are done on animals, and animals are not necessarily in the wild. They can be in the houses, and they can mutate themselves because of immune pressure. So, viruses can evolve both in the lab as well as in the wild. Clearly, this is not very surprising that such things can occur. As viruses evolve due to pressures, the whole motivation is not clear.
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