‘Significant surge in Covid infections very unlikely in India’

The waning immunity among individuals in India who had gained natural immunity through Covid infection could cause a small ripple of Covid infections in the coming months.

Hyderabad: The waning immunity among individuals in India who had gained natural immunity through Covid infection could cause a small ripple of Covid infections in the coming months.

However, it is very unlikely that the surge of Covid infections will be as significant as the ongoing Covid wave in China, the researchers from IIT Hyderabad and IIT Kanpur in their SUTRA model for forecasting the course of the pandemics, said.

The natural immunity gained by a majority of Indians during the previous three Covid waves would provide enough protection from new Omicron variants, especially BF 7, which is behind the surge of infections in China, senior researchers from IIT Hyderabad, Dr M Vidyasagar and Dr Manindra Agrawal said.

“According to our models, more than 98 per cent of Indians have natural immunity. So, we do not see any reason of concern. Over time, some percentage will lose natural immunity, and it may cause a small ripple, but it is very unlikely that a significant rise will occur,” members of SUTRA consortium said.

The present rise of Covid infections in China, Brazil, South Korea, Japan and US was due to new mutations and a percentage of population losing their natural immunity, which was the case in India a few months ago.

Natural immunity was not there in 25 per cent of population in Korea, 40 per cent in Japan and 20 per cent in US. So, the ongoing Covid wave is expected to continue for a while in these countries because there is still a significant percentage of population with no natural immunity.

The IIT researchers pointed out that in the past also, countries with high level of natural immunity have not seen significant rise in case numbers. “In China, due to its zero-Covid policy, natural immunity did not develop,” Dr Manindra Agrawal said.

There have been numerous studies by multiple research agencies that demonstrated that natural immunity was superior to vaccine-induced immunity. During the Delta and Omicron-driven Covid waves, large chunk of Indian population got exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and have naturally developed immunity.

In fact, a year into the Covid pandemic, more than half of the population in Hyderabad by March 2021 had gained natural immunity through SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to CCMB and NIN Hyderabad-centric study. Throughout Telangana, the immunity levels against SARS-CoV-2 were around 60 per cent to 62 per cent, the sero-surveillance study conducted by NIN on collaboration with ICMR and State government, said.