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Covid-19 & Herd Immunity
Why is it in News?
- Journal Lancent is doubtful about herd immunity to counter covid-19
More on News
- Herd immunity
(1) When most of the population are immune to virus, this provides indirect protection to those whose are not immune .
(2) It is based on - if a certain percentage is immune, members of that group can no longer infect another person. This stops the chain of infections
(3) This infection of most people to stop spread is called ‘herd immunity’
(4) Depending how contagious an infection is, usually 70% to 90% of a population needs immunity to achieve herd immunity or to stop spread of virus.
- Population based study in Spain
(1) It is intended to estimate seroprevalence
(2) Seroprevalence is the level of pathogen in population, as measured in blood serum
(3) Study also calculated Prevalence of IgG antibodies
(4) findings suggest that majority of the Spanish population is seronegative to SARS CoV-2 infection, even in hotspot areas
- Lancet is doubtful about new epidemic wave
(1) It is because only 5% of the population developed antibodies in response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
(2) That is - 95% continues to be susceptible to the virus.
(3) As per study, absence of treatment or a vaccine against Covid-19, achieving herd immunity at this stage is not possible
(4) Herd immunity cannot be achieved without many deaths and pressure on health systems