New coronavirus strain reaches Karachi
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Amid the alarming revelation that the latest coronavirus variant has reached Karachi, Dr Atta-ur-Rehman stressed that vaccine would have to be developed at local level to fight the pandemic, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Thursday.
Dr Rehman, who is the chairperson of the prime minister’s national task force on science and technology, noted that the new variant could affect children more – unlike the previous trend.
Over 200 companies were currently involved in the process of developing a vaccine that could control the variant, he added.
Separately, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry in a tweet said importing the coronavirus vaccine was a complicated issue
کرونا ویکسین خریداری-کابینہ کمیٹی کا پہلا اجلاس کل ہوا، ویکسین کی پاکستان میں درآمد پیچیدہ اور اہممعاملہ ہے،کمیٹی کا ٹارگٹ ہے کہ بہترین ویکسین کم قیمت پر پاکستان میں جلد از جلد مہیا ہو سکے، قیمت سے زیادہ اہم ویکسین کا مکمل محفوظ ہونا ہے اور معیار پر کوئ سمجھوتہ نہیں کیا جائیگا
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) December 24, 2020
Noting that vaccine being safe is important than the price, he said there would be no compromise on quality. The first meeting of the federal cabinet committee was held yesterday with a target of quality vaccine’s availability at a reasonable rate, Fawad said.
Discussing the new coronavirus strain B.1.1.7, The Guardian in a report said a growing number of countries had enacted travel bans against the UK over the past week.
Experts say that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should still provide immunity against this coronavirus strain. “A mutation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Viruses are expected to mutate,” said Brian Labus, an epidemiologist, infectious disease expert, and public health professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
In fact, Steve Russell, PhD, MPH, the CEO and co-founder of Imanis Life Sciences, said that SARS-CoV-2 — the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 — has been acquiring a rate of 1 to 2 mutations a month ever since it first appeared in Wuhan, China. Because of mutations, Labus says that the coronavirus strain from China isn’t the same circulating in the United States and other parts of the world.
“Everything that has genetic material will undergo mutation, and that’s really the driving force behind evolution. But viruses mutate much more frequently, especially RNA viruses, like coronaviruses,” Angela Rasmussen, PhD, a virologist at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, said.