NEW DELHI (AP) – India is expanding its coronavirus vaccine campaign beyond healthcare and front-line workers, offering the shots to elderly people and people with medical conditions that put them at risk. Among the first to receive a vaccine on Monday was Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Those who are now eligible include someone over 60, as well as those over 45 who have diseases such as heart disease or diabetes, making them vulnerable to serious COVID-19 diseases. The shots are given free of charge at state hospitals and will also be sold at more than 10,000 private hospitals at a fixed price of 250 rupees, or $ 3.40, per shot.
But the implementation of one of the world’s largest vaccinations drives slow. Amid signs of hesitation among the first groups to offer the vaccine, Modi, who is 70, got a chance at the All India Institute of Medical Science in New Delhi. He receives the vaccine manufactured by Indian vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech – which is particularly skeptical. He called on everyone to be vaccinated and then tweeted: “Let’s make India COVID-19 free!”
The journey, which began in January in the country of 1.4 billion people, has recently begun to gain even more urgency as new infections have started to increase again after months of constant decline, and scientists have detected worrying variants of the virus they fear accelerates infections or makes vaccines or treatments less useful.
Many elderly people started queuing outside private hospitals on Monday morning. Sunita Kapoor was among them waiting for a vaccine with her husband. She said they had been staying at home for months and had not met people to stay safe from the virus – and looked forward to being able to socialize a little more. “We are excited,” said Kapoor, 63.
Many said they struggled with the online registration system and then waited in line for hours before receiving the vaccine – problems that other countries have also experienced.
Dr. Giridhar R. Babu, who studies epidemics at the Public Health Foundation of India, said long waits for the elderly are a concern because they can detect infections, including COVID-19, in hospitals. “The unintended effect could be that they get COVID when they are going to get the vaccine,” he said.
Although India is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer and has one of the largest vaccination programs, things did not go according to plan. Of the 10 million health workers who initially wanted to immunize the government, only 6.6 million received the first shot of the two-dose vaccines and 2.4 million both. Of the estimated 20 million frontline workers, such as police or sanitation workers, only 5.1 million have been vaccinated so far.
Dr Gagangdeep Kang, an expert in infectious diseases at Christian Medical College Vellore in southern India, said the reluctance by health workers to highlight the lack of information about the vaccines. If health workers are reluctant, “do you seriously think the general public is going to pop in for the vaccine?” she said.
Vaccinating more people quickly is a major priority for India, especially now that infections are on the rise again. The country has recorded more than 11 million cases, second in the world behind the United States, and more than 157,000 deaths. By August, the government had set a target of immunizing 300 million people, almost the entire U.S. population.
The increase in infections in India is most prevalent in the western state of Maharashtra, where the number of active cases has almost doubled in the past two weeks to more than 68,000. Exclusions and other restrictions have been reintroduced in some areas, and the Prime Minister of the state, Uddhav Thackeray, warned that another wave of business was knocking on our door. ‘
Similar impacts have been reported from states in all corners of the massive country: Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir in the north, Gujarat in the west, West Bengal in the east, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in central India, and Telangana in the south.
Top federal officials have asked the authorities in the countries to increase the speed of vaccinations in districts where the cases are increasing and to detect clusters of infections and monitor variants.
“There is a sense of urgency because of the mutants and because cases are on the rise,” said Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, said.
He said the consistent decline in cases over months had led to a “reduced perception of threats” leading to vaccine hesitation. “The (vaccination) ride started when the perception was that the worst was over, so people were more hesitant,” Reddy said.
Others have also pointed out that the reluctance to be vaccinated has been at least partially exacerbated by the government’s opaque decision-making. while vaccines are green light.
But experts believe that access to private hospitals should give the shots – which began with this new phase of the campaign. India’s healthcare system is volatile, and in many small cities, people are dependent on private hospitals for their medical needs.
There are still problems. India built in online software to keep track of the recordings and receivers, but the system was prone to errors and delays.
The federal government will decide which hospitals will receive which vaccine, and people will not have the choice between the AstraZeneca vaccine or the Bharat Biotech one, said Dr. Amar Fettle, the necessary COVID-19 officer for the southern Indian state of Kerala, confirmed. The latter was given the go-ahead by Indian regulators in January before trials testing the effectiveness of the shot to prevent disease were completed..
But opening the campaign to private hospitals could enable the rich to do ‘shopping’ for places that offer the AstraZeneca vaccine – an option that poorer people would not have, says Dr. Anant Bhan, who studies medical ethics.
India is now hoping to increase vaccinations quickly. But the country is likely to continue to see bowls and peaks of infections, and the most important lesson is that the pandemic will not end until enough people have been vaccinated to slow the spread of the virus, Geishgetown health economist Jishnu Das said. . University advising West Bengal State on virus response.
“Do not use a bowl to declare success and say it is over,” he said.
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Associated Press journalists Krutika Pathi and Rishabh Jain contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Scientific Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.