BF.7 won't be severe in India: CCMB Director Vinay K Nandicoori

Hyderabad: The severity of BF.7 variant of coronavirus in India may not be as serious as it is currently prevailing in China as most Indians have already developed 'herd immunity' a top official of CSIR- Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad said.

CCMB Director Vinay K Nandicoori, stressing on the need to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, said there is always a concern that all these variants have the ability to escape the immunity and can infect people who are vaccinated and even sometimes infected with the previous variants of Omicron.

"The severity of the infection is not as much as they used to be with Delta. That's because of the fact that we do have herd immunity to an extent. Actually, we have herd immunity because we are exposed to the other viruses," he said.

"We (India) have seen the Delta wave which is a big one. Then we have got vaccination done. And then the Omicron wave came, and we continued booster doses. We are different in many ways. What is happening in China may not happen in India because of that," he said.

The CCMB Director said the 'Zero Covid Policy' followed by China is one of the reasons for the outbreak of the infection in that country and opined that lower vaccination levels may also have contributed to the severity.

"It is actually that (the zero Covid policy that China has followed) and also the fact is in China, not many people really went for the vaccine as it has happened in India all the older population is vaccinated and sometimes even booster dose has been given to them or to the susceptible sections," he said.