As India faces the daunting task to make life-saving oxygen cylinders and key Covid drugs available amid the raging second wave of the pandemic, top health experts said on Thursday that the country needs to prepare itself for a long haul -- at least for the next 2-3 years -- unless oral drugs that can effectively kill the virus are available over the counter.

The Centre and the state governments need a well chalked out plan for the next couple of years to deal with the pandemic, which will become like the seasonal flu, they said. "The future remains a mystery.

Covid may continue for long if the strains remain infectious, and hit us hard a multiple times in the years to come, or it may disappear if the virus mutates to a very docile one similar to flu," Neha Gupta, infectious diseases specialist at the Medanta-The Medicity, told.

 "The ideal situation will be oral drugs which can effectively kill the virus and are safe to use on OPD basis. Till then, mask, hand hygiene and social distancing are of paramount importance for us and must remain a part of our lives for years to come," she elaborated. Covid-19 may be seasonal like flu, according to researchers from the University of Illinois, Chicago. "One conclusion is that the disease may be seasonal, like the flu. This is very relevant to what we should expect from now on after the vaccine controls these first waves of Covid-19," said Gustavo Caetano-Anolles in a paper published in the journal 'Evolutionary Bioinformatics.

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