- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA celebrated administering the billionth Covid vaccine last week but official data have shown that things are far from rosy when it comes to taking the second coronavirus jab. More than 100 million Indians have not turned up for the second dose, official records have shown, raising a serious concern over a resurgence in the disease despite a relatively less infection rate.
The revelation has also raised a question mark over India achieving the target of vaccinating all its adults by December 31. India faced a deadly second wave of the coronavirus earlier this year and had to suspend its export plan to meet the domestic demand for vaccines.
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“We have seen this complacency with tuberculosis patients. They start taking the drugs and after a few weeks, they feel better so they stop even though they have to take them for six months,” Bhavna Dewan, a health worker in Nainital in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand told The Guardian. “It’s a similar mentality with the vaccine. I’m sure they feel one dose is enough because no one is falling ill.”
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Indian health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who has expressed his satisfaction over India’s vaccination progress time and again, has urged the states to address the issue. He said on Wednesday that from November, health workers will go door-to-door to administer doses.
The Narendra Modi government’s door-to-door vaccination campaign named ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ is likely to be launched on November 2 on the occasion of Dhanwantari Divas, official sources said on Thursday (28), according to Asian News International.
“‘Har Ghar Dastak’ door-to-door vaccination campaign that will run over the next one month for full vaccination in poor-performing districts will be launched on November 2 on the occasion of Dhanwantari Divas,” official sources said.
India has so far administered the first dose to 725 million people, which is 77 per cent of its 944 million adults but the second dose to only 316 million people or just 34 per cent.
Experts fear that giving the second dose might prove to be a challenge if people have turned complacent believing that the worst is behind us.
India’s infection rate has remained low for the past few months. In the past few days, the number of new daily cases have been around 13,000 to 15,000, the lowest for eight months.
People have also been found celebrating the festivals and crowding, almost ruling out chances of a third wave wreaking havoc.
Many experts also say that unless a new variant arrives, a third wave looks unlikely. But scientists like Dr Satyajit Rath, told The Guardian that it could be a matter of concern if 103.4 million people completely ignore the second dose.
“If people have always dallied a little in coming in for their second dose, maybe coming a week or two or a month later than prescribed because they were busy, then it is not alarming. It simply means that many of these 103.4 million people will catch up. But if a larger percentage of people are coming in late, then it is concerning. But we don’t know,” Rath, who works at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, said.
