Hello everyone! We hope you all are doing well.
Today in this article, we will talk about Herd Immunity1. You must have been hearing about this buzzword very much in the media, and its relation with the Coronavirus. So let us understand this topic in detail.
According to Mayo Clinic, Herd immunity is a phenomenon which occurs when a large portion of a community (the herd) becomes immune to a disease and makes the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. So, the whole community becomes protected, not just those who are immune.
“Often, a percentage of the population must be capable of getting a disease in order for it to spread. This is called a threshold proportion. If the proportion of the population that is immune to the disease is greater than this threshold, the spread of the disease will decline. This is known as the herd immunity threshold.”—Mayo Clinic.
Not everyone becomes immune to the disease, but the group as a whole has protection as there are fewer high-risk people. Therefore infection rates drop gradually, and we move to the eradication of disease eventually.
Herd immunity protects at-risk populations. These include babies and those whose immune systems are weak and can’t get resistance on their own.
Herd Immunity can be achieved through large scale vaccination or natural infection:
1. Large scale vaccination is a method that will create immunity without causing any harmful effect to the person who is vaccinated. This is the ideal approach. This has been successful in eradication of many infectious diseases such as Polio, Smallpox etc.
2. A community reaches the stage of herd immunity when a large number of people, after getting infected, have recovered and developed antibodies against future infection.
Now when we watch and hear debates of “herd immunity” in the media, they are generally talking about the Natural Infection route to achieve herd immunity as there is no vaccine for coronavirus right now.
Why the Natural Infection route is Problematic?
There are 2 major reasons for this:
1. We currently don’t know whether a person who gets infected and recovered from COVID-19 is immune to future infections or not. (There are some reports showing re-infection as a possibility in some cases.)
2. Let us consider for a second that infection with COVID-19 creates immunity to future infections, a large number of people would need to become infected to reach the herd immunity threshold. 75% of the Indian population is close to 90-100 crore people. 100 crore people would have to get infected first to reach a stage where we can talk about developing herd immunity. Our hospitals and the healthcare system can’t support such a large number of cases, it would collapse. Even if the mortality rate2 is 0.1%, it will lead to 10 lakh unnecessary deaths in India.
What about the vaccine?
According to a report published by Marketwatch, 23 companies are in the race of developing vaccines or treatments that can target the infection caused by COVID-19 worldwide. The Indian companies which are trying to develop a vaccine are Zydus Cadila(Ahmedabad),Serum Institute of India(Pune),Bharat Biotech(Hyderabad), Auro vaccines(Hyderabad) + Gennova Bio(Pune) and Bharat Biotech(Bangalore).
The Road Ahead
The research to find a vaccine is still going on and experts are saying that it will take quite a lot of time. So till then, we should strictly follow the social distancing norms, use masks, and sanitize our hands frequently. Only this routine can limit the spread of COVID-19. So, bear with this and follow all the guidelines.
So, now we hope that you understood the meaning and relevance of Herd Immunity. In our upcoming blogs, we’ll discuss more such interesting and informative topics. If you don’t want to miss out on the next important blog, click here!
Thank You!
NOTE:
1. Immunity: The immune system protects the body against disease or other potentially damaging foreign bodies. When functioning properly, the immune system identifies and attacks a variety of threats, including viruses, bacteria and parasites, while distinguishing them from the body’s own healthy tissue. (Livescience.com)
2. Mortality Rate: The number of actual deaths caused by a disease divided by the total number of cases.
