Mask is the best weapon to fight pandemic: Study

KOLKATA: Regulatory bodies must focus on use of mask and an extensive vaccination drive against Covid-19. A study on these lines by doctors of School of Tropical Medicine, published in the ‘Journal of Indian Medical Association (JIMA)’ is being sent to various agencies, like Kolkata Police and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), so they can step up the awareness drive.
The research paper, titled “Mask for all; physical and immunological barrier of Covid-19”, by Shambo S Samajdar, Srijita Ghosh, Shreyashi Dasgupta and Jyotirmoy Pal, uses evidence to support the use of masks as a protective barrier to limit virus entry.“Masks and vaccination should be the focus of regulatory bodies. Our paper has shown how face mask is the best weapon to fight the pandemic,” Samajdar, clinical pharmacologist, STM, told TOI.
Senior clinical pharmacologist Santanu K Tripathi and dean of Indian College of Physicians Padmashree Shashank R Joshi have contributed to the research that shows how masks indirectly help stimulate protective immune responses and provides a comparative glimpse on the characteristics of various masks. The introduction of the research, published in JIMA, reads, “Even with the emergency use authorization of vaccines, we are yet to bring the pandemic to its knees. The present scenario highlights the importance of face masks in controlling transmission of the SARS CoV2 virus.”
Samajdar and his team have deduced that while a vaccine stimulates the immune system in the form of an antigen, a face mask, “shows an immense preventive role in the pandemic”.