Third Covid wave could hit India in 6 to 8 weeks; vaccination main challenge: AIIMS chief

A third wave of Covid-19 in India is “inevitable”, and could hit the country in the next six to eight weeks, AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria has said.

“As we have started unlocking, there is again a lack of Covid-appropriate behaviour. We don’t seem to have learnt from what happened between the first and the second wave. Again crowds are building up… people are gathering. It will take some time for the number of cases to start rising at the national level. But it (third wave) could happen within the next six to eight weeks… may be a little longer,” Dr Guleria was reported saying by NDTV.

“It all depends on how we go ahead in terms of Covid-appropriate behaviour and preventing crowds,” he added.

At present, the main challenge in India is vaccinating a huge population and the increase in dose gaps for Covishield “may not be a bad” approach to provide protection to cover more people, he explained.

A new frontier will have to be developed in India’s fight against Covid to further study the mutation of the virus, Dr Guleria stressed as he talked about the new Delta-Plus variant, which has evolved from the Delta variant of COVID-19, triggering fresh concerns about monoclonal antibody treatment.

Nearly 5 per cent of the country’s population has so far been vaccinated with two doses. The government aims to vaccinate 108 crore of over 130 crore people in the country by the end of this year.

“That (vaccination) is the main challenge. A new wave can usually take up to three months but it can also take much lesser time, depending on various factors. Apart from Covid-appropriate behaviour, we need to ensure strict surveillance. Last time, we saw a new variant – which came from outside and developed here – led to the huge surge in the number of cases. We know the virus will continue to mutate. Aggressive surveillance in hotspots is required,” the AIIMS chief said.

“Mini-lockdown in any part of the country, which witnesses a surge and a rise in positivity rate beyond 5 per cent, will be required. Unless we’re vaccinated, we’re vulnerable in the coming months,” he underlined, stressing that “testing, tracking, and treating” should be the focus in hotspots.

“We have to factor in human behaviour while unlocking, which needs to be done in a graded manner,” Dr Guleria stressed.

On the spread of the Delta variant in the United Kingdom, which is now facing a third wave, he said, “Virus is still mutating, we need to be careful”.

The highly transmissible variant first identified in India is now making up 99 per cent of fresh COVID-19 cases in the UK, news agency PTI reported.