Modi gets jab as India steps up vaccine export
MINISTERS REASSURE CITIZENS ABOUT SUPPLY AMID HOARDING WARNING
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi received his Covid-19 vaccine on Monday (1), but an online booking system glitch meant thousands across the country were turned away from hospitals.
The government – which has set an ambitious target of vaccinating 300 million people by the end of June – has opened up the jabs to all over-60s and any over-45s with serious illnesses.
Since the vaccination drive was launched in January, 14 million people have been immunised, mainly health workers and security forces.
Modi received a domestic developed vaccine, Covaxin, at the AIIMS (All-India Institute of Medical Sciences) national medical institute.
The vaccine, developed by Bharat Biotech, is one of two approved for use in India, even though the late-stage data from trials on 25,800 volunteers have not yet been released.
Despite criticism from some doctors and health workers, India’s drug regulator and the company insist it is safe for use.
Fears over vaccines have contributed to the slow pace of innoculation. Modi said on Twitter: “I appeal to all those who are eligible to take the vaccine. Together, let us make India Covid-19 free!”
The government assured Indians on Tuesday (2) that there were plenty of Covid-19 vaccines for the country even though it has sent quantities overseas. It also urged states not to horde supplies.
India needs to crank up the pace of immunisation at home. It wants to vaccinate 300 million people – a fifth of its population – against the virus by August, officials have said.
The country makes 60 per cent of
all vaccines in the world and has gifted or sold Covid-19 shots to several countries.
“The central government has adequate stock and will provide the required vaccine doses to the states and union territories,” the federal government said.
States should not “store, reserve, conserve or create a buffer stock of the Covid vaccines,” it added.
Problems with online registration did not help on the first day of the new drive.
“It’s utter chaos here,” said Nilanjana Gupta, who took her lawyer father Sunil Gupta to the Max Smart Super Speciality hospital in Delhi.
Gupta said the administrators were “clueless”, and it took more than 30 attempts to get a registration number on the government app. “I expected this, but it’s still very frustrating,” she added.
An uncle of US vice-president Kamala Harris was also among those affected.
Balachandran Gopalan, an academic, said he got onto the government portal and received a registration number and an appointment at a hospital in New Delhi’s Malviya Nagar area. “Once I got there, they checked my registration details and said they have no record of it,” the 79-year-old said.
Gopalan said hospital officials could not tell him when his turn would come. “I understand the doctors are stressed,” he said. “But why put the patients under stress?”
The vaccination drive has been stepped up as India sees a surge in new cases after a dramatic fall in recent months. New cases have risen to about 15,000 a day from about 10,000 a month ago.
Government health official Vinod Kumar Paul told a news conference on Tuesday that India was nowhere close to attaining herd immunity through natural infection or vaccination, requiring states to continue their surveillance.
New lockdown restrictions have been ordered in major cities in Maharashtra state, which has been India’s worst hit in the pandemic.
Recorded cases have fallen continuously since a mid-September peak, before again rising since early February. Eight of 10 recent infections have been reported by five states, mainly Maharashtra and Kerala. Maharashtra’s health department said only 14 per cent of its 77,000 active patients were on oxygen or intensive-care beds. More than 80 per cent of such beds are now unoccupied, compared with a shortage a few months ago.
Some experts predict that the relatively low hospitalisation and fatality rates in India suggest the coronavirus pandemic is approaching its next phase – largely manageable local outbreaks.
Rajib Dasgupta, an epidemiologist and professor of community health at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, said India was witnessing a phase of “multiple epidemics within a country” where the entire population is not equally susceptible.
“In this phase, the emphasis has to be a lot more local. A lot of local capacities will be put to the test,” he said. “The positive thing – what’s being seen in Europe – is that as subsequent surges come, as the knowledge has improved, the management is better, both in terms of public health management as well as clinical care, and actually deaths go down.”
Dasgupta said the aim should be to try and contain the virus within local clusters, instead of measures like inter-state curbs on travellers.