Renowned public health experts put forth different opinions during Health4All Episode-16, based on the emerging new scientific evidence regarding covid and vaccination.
 
Dr Sanjay Kumar Rai, President, IPHA, Professor, Dept of Community Medicines, AIIMS, New Delhi said, “Vaccine is the smart way of controlling diseases. However, in the current scenario, those who recovered from covid infection are best-protected people, so vaccinate such people first, who are not COVID infected. Recently, CDC has observed that natural infection provides better and longer protection. The vaccine was a priority for the susceptible population. Natural infection is also helping boost immunity just like vaccines.”
 
Dr Rai further added, “We need to have two comparator groups for vaccination. The one who recovered from covid, and another who are uninfected to observe the efficacy of vaccines on both groups. Universal vaccination is completely irrational as there is no additional benefit. It is unethical because the risk is more than the benefit."
 
Emphasising the judicious use of vaccination, Dr Rai added, “We must vaccinate those who haven’t had covid ever. Vaccines are effective in preventing severity and death up to 80-90 per cent in a susceptible population. More than 60 per cent of the population across the world have received 1st dose of covid vaccines.”
 
Dr Anurag Tandon, Head, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Metro Centre for Liver Digestive Diseases, Metro Hospitals, said, “We should not speculate ourselves at home that when we encounter pain due to gas; there might be some problems in the heart. Therefore, it is advisable to consult the doctor immediately rather than getting over the counter medicines.”

Dr Piyush Ranjan, Senior Consultant & Vice-Chairman, Institute of Liver and Gastroenterology, Pancreatic Biliary Sciences, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi, said, “Gastritis is not a particular disease itself, it may be due to inflammation of the stomach, bloating in stomach and burning in the head or maybe due to other causes. When blockage in the liver occurs, it shows a sign of a red flag, and we should immediately consult the doctor for this."