India starts world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination drive
NEW DELHI — India started inoculating health workers Saturday in what is likely the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination campaign, joining the ranks of wealthier nations where the effort is already well underway.
The country is home to the world’s largest vaccine makers and has one of the biggest immunization programs. But there is no playbook for the enormity of the challenge.
Indian authorities hope to give shots to 300 million people, roughly the population of the U.S. The recipients include 30 million doctors, nurses and other front-line workers to be followed by 270 million others, who are either over 50 or have illnesses that make them vulnerable to COVID-19.
India is second to the U.S. with more than 10.5 million confirmed cases, and ranks third in the number of deaths, behind the U.S. and Brazil, with over 152,000. Overall, more than 94 million people around the world have been infected and over 2 million have died from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
For workers who have pulled India’s battered health care system through the pandemic, the shots offered confidence that life can start returning to normal. Many burst with pride.
“I am excited that I am among the first to get the vaccine,” said nurse Gita Devi, as she lifted her left sleeve to receive the shot.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi kick-started the campaign with a nationally televised speech.
“We are launching the world’s biggest vaccination drive and it shows the world our capability,” Modi said. He implored citizens to
keep their guard up and not to believe any “rumors about the safety of the vaccines.”
It was not clear if Modi, 70, has taken the vaccine himself like other world leaders as an example of the shot’s safety. His government has said politicians will not be considered priority groups in the first phase of the rollout.
Health officials haven’t specified what percentage of the nearly 1.4 billion people will be targeted by the campaign. But experts say it will almost certainly be the largest such drive globally.
The sheer scale has obstacles. India plans to rely heavily on a digital platform to track the shipment and delivery of vaccines, but public health experts point out that the internet remains patchy in large parts of the country, and some remote villages are entirely unconnected.
Around 100 people will be vaccinated in each of the 3,006 centers across the country on the first day, the Health Ministry said.
India gave a nod for emergency use of two vaccines, one developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based
drugmaker AstraZeneca, and another by Indian company Bharat Biotech, on Jan. 4. Cargo planes recently flew 16.5 million shots to different Indian cities.
Health experts worry that the regulatory shortcut taken to approve the Bharat Biotech vaccine without waiting for concrete data that would show its efficacy in preventing illness from the coronavirus could amplify vaccine hesitancy. At least one state health minister has opposed its use.
India’s Health Ministry has bristled at the criticism and says the vaccines are safe, but maintains that health workers will have no choice in deciding which vaccine they would get themselves.
According to Dr. S.P. Kalantri, the director of a rural hospital in Maharashtra, India’s worst-hit state, such an approach was worrying because he said the regulatory approval was hasty and not backed by science.
“In a hurry to be populist, the government (is) taking decisions that might not be in the best interest of the common man,” Kalantri said.