By Krishna N. Das and Mayank Bhardwaj
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Hospital cleaner Manish Kumar became the first person in India to be vaccinated against COVID-19 on Saturday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched one of the world’s largest vaccination campaigns to bring the pandemic under control.
Kumar got his shot at Delhi’s leading All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), one of 3,006 vaccination centers located across the country.
“The vaccine gives me strength and motivation to serve my hospital, which was at the forefront of caring for coronavirus patients,” Kumar said. “Since I feel relieved after taking the vaccine, I think everyone should go for it.”
India prefers nurses, doctors and other frontline workers, and Modi had tears in his eyes when he addressed health workers via video conferencing.
“The disease separated people from their families, kept mothers away from their children and those who died from the disease could not even get a final farewell from their families,” Modi said.
The director of AIIMS, Randeep Guleria, and UK Paul, COVID-19’s top adviser to Modi, also received the shots in the presence of Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan.
The government calls its vaccination campaign the largest in the world and hopes that about 300,600 people will be vaccinated on the first day – a first step in administering about 300 million people with two doses in the first six to eight months of the year.
With a population of nearly 1.4 billion people, India is the world’s most populous country after China. About 10.5 million people in India are infected with the coronavirus, the highest number of infections after the United States, and more than 151,000 have died, although the infection rate dropped from a peak in mid-September.
India uses the Oxford University / AstraZeneca vaccine and a government-sponsored vaccine developed by the Indian Bharat Biotech whose effectiveness is not yet known. People will not be able to choose which vaccines they both manufacture locally.
The first in line are about 30 million health and other frontline workers, such as those in terms of sanitation and safety, followed by about 270 million people over 50 or considered high risk due to medical conditions.
The government has already purchased 11 million doses of AstraZeneca COVISHIELD shot, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and 5.5 million from Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN.
According to the Indian Drug Regulator, COVISHIELD is 72% effective, while Bharat Biotech says the results of COVAXIN are expected in the final stages of testing by March.
While nationalist politicians cheer for COVAXIN, some health experts consider it rushed, as the vaccine has only a clinical trial.
In addition to the concerns about efficiency, the careful monitoring required for its use is a major challenge.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Mayank Bhardwaj; Additional reporting by Rupam Jain, Devjyot Ghoshal, Amit Dave and Adnan Abidi; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Frances Kerry)