News Analysis India

Tag: vaccination policy

  • 78% of India’s total jabs administered through onsite/walk-in vaccinations despite digital push

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  Despite all its ‘Digital India’ push, the Modi government has been unable to make India take the digital route for getting inoculated against Covid-19. More than three-fourth of the total vaccine doses have been administered through onsite/walk-in vaccinations, the Centre has accepted in an affidavit to Supreme Court.

    “As on 23.06.2021, out of the 32.22 crore beneficiaries registered on CoWIN, 19.12 crore (nearly 59%) beneficiaries have been registered in the on-site mode,” stated the affidavit submitted last week. “As per the data available on CoWIN as on 23.06.2021, out of the total 29.68 crore vaccine doses recorded on CoWIN, 23.12 crore doses (nearly 78%) have been administered through on-site/walk-in vaccination,” it added.

    The figures validate the Supreme Court’s concerns over the Centre’s vaccination policy that was “exclusively relying on a digital portal” until severe criticism and a plethora of complaints forced a course correction on May 23, when on-site or walk-in registration and vaccination was opened for beneficiaries in the 18-44 age group.

    The central government had launched phase-wise Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16 this year through Co-WIN digital platform with prior registration being required for getting the jabs. In a bid to make the online registration on the Co-WIN platform easy, the government has made various changes, such as making the portal available in Hindi and 14 regional languages including Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Odiya, Gurumukhi, Bengali, Assamese, Tamil and Gujarati and removing the Captcha code. But even after those changes, a majority of people have opted for non-digital mode of registration, as the data from the CoWIN platform till June 23, cited in the affidavit, reveals.

    Before the government allowed walk-in vaccination facility, the mandatory online registration was seen to haveaccentuated India’s digital divide, with rich and urban Indians having much more access to the jabs than poor and rural folks. This divide was also seen to be a leading factor — apart from vaccine hesitancy behind slow pace of immunisation before the second wave of the pandemic started wreaking havoc. Lack of internet facility and smartphones in rural areas, apart from the complexities of navigating the CoWIN portal, were said to be preventing people in smaller towns and rural areas from accessing the vaccination facility. 

    The Supreme Court had also censured the mandatory online registration in a judgment on May 31. Pointing out the gaping digital divide that exists in the country, the court said the target of universal immunisation cannot be achieved by relying on a portal. The marginalised sections of society “would bear the brunt of this accessibility barrier” and this could have “serious implications on the fundamental right to equality and the right to health”, the SC said.

     In its affidavit, the Centre submitted that it was aware that lack of access to digital devices or internet may pose barriers to the citizens and hence it had allowed both on-site and digital registration for all age groups. The CoWIN system is inclusive and “there is no question of any person being left out due to any digital divide”, it asserted. 

    The government further said that on-site registration was not made available only to the beneficiaries in the 18-44 age group between May 1 and May 23 to prevent overcrowding at vaccination centres in view of the need for maintaining social distancing due to a massive surge in cases during the period.

  • With Centre set to procure 75% Covid vaccines, chorus grows for transparent distribution formula

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: Calling the new changes in the Narendra Modi government’s Covid vaccination policy a partial correction, experts have called for the need of a clearly spelt out distribution plans based on which vaccines are to be distributed among states.

    The specific formulae based on which vaccines have been allocated to states so far have remained opaque, prompting many to speculate that politics too, and not only the need of the state, has played a part in vaccines’ delivery by the Union government.

    From time to time, many state governments, mainly those ruled by opposition parties, too have blamed the Centre of not supplying adequate Covid vaccines as demanded, indicating that it has prioritised BJP ruled states over them. 

    Prime Minister Modi on Monday announced that starting June 21, all adults in the country will be entitled to receive Covid vaccines for free in government hospitals across India as 75% of the total vaccines will be procured centrally and provided to states.

    Former Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan called it a “laudable” move, in response to a “rapidly changing dynamic situation.”

    Those who have been following the Centre’s Covid response and vaccination policy closely said that the need of the states, and requirement of vulnerable groups, instead of political whims and fancy should guide the vaccine distribution roadmap, more so as central will have control on a higher number of vaccines now.

    ALSO READ | Centre to take over vaccination drive from June 21, only 25% for private hospitals: PM Modi

    “The new policy is an improvement from the earlier one and looks better on paper but the plan for distributing the vaccine should be spelt out clearly and released in a transparent manner,” stressed health economist Rijo M John, attached with IIM, Kozhikode.

    He pointed out that so far, the country does not clearly know which state has got how many doses of the vaccines and what was the basis of supplying them.

    “Chances of arbitrarily distributing the vaccines will grow even more now that the Centre will directly procure 75% of the vaccines and could decide on allocations unilaterally,” he added.

    Economist R Ramakumar too, while emphasising that the latest announcement is the partial correction from the Centre’s earlier strategy, added that the formula being used for supplying vaccines to the states should be publicised.

    “We will expect that along with the details of the new policy, the distribution plan and the numbers along with the criteria used to arrive at the numbers will be released at the earliest,” he said.

    Ramakumar also said that the window of opportunity provided to vaccine makers to make profit on 25% Covid vaccines also needed to be rolled back.

    “Even now, 25 % of the vaccines continue to be reserved for the rich in private hospitals,” he said, adding that 100% of the vaccines should be centrally procured and provided to people free of cost.

  • Reduced vaccine efficacy: Experts call for policy revisit

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  The latest study indicating that the existing Covid-19 vaccines may have reduced efficacy against the B.1.617 variant of SARS CoV-2 has prompted many experts to urge the Centre to rethink its vaccination policy using fresh modelling and serosurveys. The B.1.617 variant of Covid- 19 is largely responsible for the ferocious second wave of the pandemic in India and has reached many countries, including the UK. The Indian government had recently decided to raise the gap between two doses of Covishield vaccine to 12-16 weeks from the earlier suggested interval of 6-8 weeks.

    Though the government insisted that it was being done at the behest of technical input from the expert panel on vaccinations, many believe that this was mainly done due to the acute shortage of Covid-19 vaccines in India. The new data from the UK, as per a study carried out by Public Health England, suggests that the two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine offer just 60% efficacy against the infection, while the protection after only one dose is much lower.

    This vaccine, however, has 66% efficacy after both doses against the B.1.1.7 variant, first detected in the UK, and even higher efficacy against the variants which were circulating earlier. The same study showed that the Pfizer, also being used in the UK, was 88% effective against the B.1.617 variant, while its efficacy is over 93% against the B.1.1.7 variant. This concern that the available vaccines may not be working as effectively against the B.1.617 variant, first detected in India, had earlier led to lowering of the gap between two doses of AstraZeneca to 8 weeks, from the earlier interval of 12 weeks in the UK.

    Sources in the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 told this newspaper that they were studying the new data while pointing out that lab studies from India have confirmed that both Covishield and Covaxin, the two major vaccines being used in the country, offer protection against various variants. Some experts, however, emphasised the need of revisiting the country’s vaccination policy in the light of new data.

    According to vaccinologist Gagandeep Kang, if two exposures to parts of SARS-CoV-2 are needed to protect someone from infection, either two doses of vaccine and even 3 in case of a vaccine based on inactivated virus such as Covaxin — or in those already with confirmed infection, one or two doses of vaccine may be required.

    “Modelling and serosurveys are urgently needed to optimise strategy for India in the view of the limited supply (of Covid vaccines),” she said. Virologist Sudhanshu Vrati, while maintaining that the lower efficacy means reduced protection between two doses of a vaccine, said any decision will have to be taken keeping in mind the vaccine scarcity.