Global effects feared as India seeks help amid dire virus wave
For months, developed economies have kept coronavirus vaccines and the raw materials needed to make them. Now, they’re being prompted to act as an explosive outbreak in India raises the risk of new virus mutations that could threaten the wider world.
Under mounting criticism for its wealth of vaccine resources, the United States said this week that it will help India by sending items needed to manufacture vaccines as part of an aid package. President Joe Biden’s administration is separately vowing to share its stockpile of AstraZeneca vaccines — which the United States has not approved for use — and meeting with drug companies about boosting supply and waiving intellectual property protections on coronavirus shots.
The moves come as scientists have linked the nation of 1.3 billion people’s second wave to a more virulent strain.
“There is certainly potential for new variants to emerge in a country the size of India that could pose a threat elsewhere,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy.
The variant identified in India — named B.1.617 — has two critical mutations that make it more likely to transmit and escape prior immunity that has been built up, Anurag Agrawal, the director of India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s genomics institute, told Bloomberg last week.
Rakesh Mishra, director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, said this variant appears to be more infectious but probably will not cause more deaths. The AstraZeneca vaccine and one from India’s Bharat Biotech have been shown to be effective against it in preliminary data, he said.
India’s second wave is more destructive. Hospitals and crematoriums are cracking under pressure, while Indians are begging on social media for oxygen cylinders, drugs and more. Almost 3,000 people are dying every day, with experts saying that figure probably underplays the real toll.