Doctors and experts have said that a single vaccine dose might not be sufficient for protection against the Delta COVID-19 variant. The variant, first found in India, has rapidly spread all across the world affecting countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. 

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A group of French researchers, in an article published by in journal Nature, said on Thursday that single shots of Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines ‘barely’ offered any protection against the Delta variant, Hindustan Times reported.

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  “Administration of two doses generated a neutralising response in 95% of individuals,” said Olivier Schwartz, the lead author of the study.

Several Indian doctors have also warned that SARS CoV-2 has the potential to acquire deadly mutations, and the Delta variant can possibly elude the vaccine coverage, as per TheHeathSite.com.

“As bacteria develops resistance, so can the virus change mutation,” Dr SP Byotra, Chairman of Department of Medicine, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), New Delhi, said according to IANS.

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“There is a possibility that the virus may elude the vaccine coverage,” Dr Praveen Gupta, Director Neurology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram added.

These doctors believe that the virus mutations cause changes on its spike protein, against which the current vaccines are ineffective.

The Delta variant of SARS CoV-2 is eight times less sensitive to vaccine-elicited antibodies as compared to the original Wuhan strain, TheHealthSite.com attributed to a study by the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH). 

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However, the experts still believe that people should get the COVID-19 vaccines. They say that the vaccine can protect against severe outcomes from COVID-19 and help in curbing the virus.

India reported 43,393 new COVID-19 cases and 911 deaths on Thursday, according to the data released by the Union Ministry of Health. There are 458,727 active cases in the country and the tally has reached 3,07,52,950. The national COVID-19 recovery rate stands at 97.18%. The death toll due to COVID in India has reached 405,939 toll.