Srinagar, May 25: After a video went viral about vaccinated people being “more likely” to infect others, experts have rejected the claims that COVID-19 vaccines are causing new variants of the virus.
Reports have circulated online saying that vaccinated people are “more likely” to infect others with “super-strains” of the coronavirus and epidemiologists know but are “silent” about the phenomenon, known as “Antibody-Dependent Enhancement” (ADE).
Dr Mohammed Sultan Khuroo, renowned Gastroenterologist, former Director SKIMS and Covid Advisory Committee Chairman while talking exclusively with news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said that he is personally distressed to see a news circulating in the social media about the risks which COVID-19 vaccines can pose due to possibility of Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE).
Khuroo said that the news is a fake and based on no facts and he would urge all members of society active in the social media not to circulate this news and delete it from their posts.
He said that ADE can occur when some component in the vaccine mounts an immune response in the host through non-neutralizing antibodies.
“This can also occur in some patients through natural infection. Once such antibodies are generated, these subvert the immune response and lead to enhanced viral replication by a mechanism depicted in the image,” he said.
Khuroo said all vaccines are tested for ADE in animal models before human trials are done.
“Should an experimental vaccine raise non-neutralizing antibodies and ADE response in animals, the vaccine molecule is altered to remove specific antigen which mount non-neutralizing antibodies and ADE response,” he said. “All vaccines are certified safe from ADE response prior to human trials.”
Khuroo stressed that all Covid-19 vaccines have been tested in animal models for ADE and are safe from such a phenomenon.
“Also, there are no reports of ADE in humans after use of millions of doses till date. So, the news item circulating in the social media is false, fake and not based on scientific facts,” he said.
Dr Khursheed a leading Pulmonologist at CD hospital also termed the reports baseless and shouldn’t pay any heed towards these things—(KNO)
