India hasn’t missed any Covid-19 vaccination target, clarifies govt

New Delhi: Responding to the media reports about India missing its Covid-19 vaccination target to vaccinate all eligible adults by the end of 2021, the union health ministry has called them misleading.

According to the data by the ministry, 90% of the eligible population has been administered the first dose of the vaccine and the coverage is at 65% for the second dose.

“In the fight against global pandemic COVID-19, India’s national COVID-19 Vaccination programme has been one of the most successful and largest vaccination programmes compared with the many developed western nations with significantly low population base to vaccinate,” the ministry said in a statement.

Further, the ministry also compared the progress of the country’s immunization program to that of other countries like the USA, the UK, France and Spain.

The 90% first dose coverage was higher than that of the USA (73.2%), the UK (75.9%), France (78.3%) and Spain (84.7%), the ministry said. However, the UK, France and Spain were ahead of India in their respective second dose coverage, the ministry’s data showed. The US, with 61.5% second dose coverage, was the only country behind India in the list shared by the ministry.

“Further, over 11 states/UTs in India has already achieved 100% of 1st dose vaccination, while 3 States/UTs have already achieved 100% full vaccination (both 1st and 2nd dose) against COVID-19. Many States/UTs are soon expected to achieve 100% vaccination very quickly,” the ministry also said.

The ministry’s remarks came after a recent media report in the BBC on December 31, titled “Covid-19: How India missed its vaccination target”, said that India missed its vaccination target of inoculating its entire adult population of 940 million with two doses.

“A nation-wide COVID-19 vaccination campaign Har Ghar Dastak campaign was implemented from 3rd Nov 2021 which includes mobilization, awareness, vaccination campaign through reaching out to all missed out and dropped out eligible beneficiaries through House to House visit. This has also resulted in an increase of 1st dose coverage by 11.6% since introduction of the campaign. While the 2nd dose coverage increased by 28.9% in the same period,” added the statement.

“Keeping in view the global surge of COVID-19 cases in December 2021, detection of Omicron variant which has been categorized’ as a Variant of Concern (VOC), scientific evidence, global best practices and the inputs/suggestions of “COVID-19 Working Group” of “National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI)” as well as of “Standing Technical Scientific Committee (STSC)” of NTAGI it was decided to further refine the scientific prioritization & coverage of COVID-19 vaccination of teenagers in the age-group of 15-18 years to be started from 3rd January 2022,” Ministry mentioned.

Health ministry statement stressed on further strengthening India’s fight against COVID-19, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has given approvals to two additional vaccines in December 2021. These include Biological-E’s CORBEVAX vaccine and SII’s COVOVAX vaccine for restricted use in emergency situation. This takes the number of vaccines given restricted use in emergency situation in India to eight.