BioAsia’21 reviews vaccine challenges

THE BIOASIA meet hoped normalcy will be restored sooner, with more and more people getting vaccinated the world over.

The virtual BioAsia 2021 conference discussed in detail the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, apart from innovations and medical technologies used in discovering different vaccines for fighting the virus. 31,450 people participated in the virtual conference from world over.

The meeting underlined the need for collaboration between different countries for timely delivery of the vaccine throughout the globe. Participants expressed concern at the evolving variants of SARS-Cov-2 and dwelt on questions whether the vaccines will be effective against the emerging new strains.

The BioAsia meet hoped normalcy will be restored sooner, with more and more people getting vaccinated the world over.

Majority of the scientists spoke about the need to trust science and get over hesitancy in taking the vaccine. Such reluctance has been observed all across the globe, so much so that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked people to voluntarily opt for the vaccines as they are safe.

The conference discussed logistics and challenges being faced in supply of vaccines to low and middle-income countries, where healthcare workers are yet to be vaccinated.

The BioAsia meet reiterated that no one is safe till all are safe. For that, better collaboration between different countries is essential, it emphasised.

Principal secretary (Industries) Jayesh Ranjan said: "About 60 eminent speakers have during the past two days elaborated on the way forward to emerge out of the current challenges in the pandemic”.