Practise Infection Prevention Habits and Don't Worry about JN.1: Expert

Hyderabad: If people practise infection prevention habits, then they should not be worried about the new Coronavirus strain, JN.1, renowned medical expert Dr N. Krishna Reddy told Deccan Chronicle, advising people to strictly wash their hands frequently, ensure mask discipline and social distancing to stop the spread of all infections.

JN.1 is a sub-variant of the Omicron strain, which the World Health Organization has classified a ‘variant of interest’ due to “its rapidly increasing spread”. JN.1 has been found in India, China, the UK and the United States, among other countries.

“See Japan for example, even when there is no major viral outbreak, people in Japan wear masks. This is because the people in Japan learned from the Sars outbreak (2002-2004),” said Dr Reddy, the CEO of Access Health International, a cardiologist and a co-founder of Care Hospitals.

However, he advised high-risk persons to take a booster vaccine and also to monitor their blood-oxygen levels to secure themselves. The World Health Organization has said current vaccines offer protection against JN.1 but Covid-19 and other infections could see a spike this winter.

“There are four commonly available vaccines to prevent respiratory diseases, namely pneumococcal vaccine, influenza vaccine, Covid-19 vaccine and RSV vaccine. I would urge, especially high-risk persons, to take these vaccines,” he said.

Dr Reddy said his latest role in Access Health International (AHI) has brought him closer to public policy.

AHI is a non-profit international health think-tank, which is a knowledge partner of the Government of India’s National Health Authority.

The current projects of AHI include providing technical support to the Uttar Pradesh government in the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna, research for the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat digital mission, training district health professionals to better analyse public health data, providing inputs to optimise public health budgets of the government and drawing up capacity building costs at the village level.

“As a knowledge partner of the government, we (AHI) carry out research to make suggestions on how health policies can be finetuned,” he said.

“One of my key areas of focus is the people's health literacy as today, healthcare is moving towards self-care and in-patient care is moving towards out-patient care. Today, cholesterol, blood pressure, stress – all these things can be taken care of at home itself. There are so many health wearables, information out there, that taking care of one’s health at home is much easier,” he said.

“When Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeals to the people to start consuming millets for health benefits, people start doing that. That is the power of reaching out to the people. And no doubt there are several benefits of consuming millets. Similarly, when the PM himself performs asanas on World Yoga Day, it energises the people to take their health seriously and perform some bit of yoga,” said Dr Reddy, who was part of the team that developed India’s first indigenously developed coronary stent, the ‘Kalam-Raju stent’.