India’s Covid Vaccination Rate Satisfactory, Experts Say | Latest India News

In the year that India started its vaccination campaign against Covid-19, the inoculation rate was quite satisfactory as the country administered 1.57 billion doses of the vaccine, experts said.

“It is a great achievement that the number of vaccine doses India has already administered is greater than the population of several countries in the world,” said VK Paul, Member (Health), Niti Aayog. “This was achieved within a year of the launch of the national Covid vaccination campaign, and that too thanks to two vaccines made in India.”

India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, has taken several steps in its campaign to fully inoculate its population. For example, on September 17 last year, nearly 2.5 million doses of vaccine were administered across the country, underscoring the states’ one-day vaccine delivery capacity when vaccine supplies are tight. sufficient.

“It is commendable that vaccination against Covid has accelerated from August,” said K Srinath Reddy, founder of the Public Health Foundation of India. “We must now ensure that all eligible adults and children complete the double dose vaccination, and that all those eligible to receive the protective doses receive them by the end of February or the beginning of March,”

The technological backbone of the Covid vaccine delivery system was CoWIN, which was created by upgrading an earlier digital platform used for India’s universal immunization program based on an electronic disease intelligence network. vaccines (eVIN).

eVIN was a web-based digital system to track routine vaccination, vaccine stocks and storage temperature in approximately 25,000 dedicated cold chain storage points in the country, as well as the movement of vaccines.

“CoWIN is one of the robust IT systems capable of large-scale program implementation and has operated successfully,” said RS Sharma, chief executive of the National Health Authority, an autonomous body that oversees the operation of CoWIN. .

India will now focus on last-mile coverage, as well as providing vaccines to other countries in need, experts have said.

“The last mile of the goal is always the hardest to reach, especially when it comes to vaccination, as those left behind might not show up due to vaccination hesitancy,” said Dileep Mavalankar, Director, Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar. “The government will have to aggressively step up the vaccination campaign.”

Under the Vaccine Mastery initiative, the government has provided Covid-19 vaccines to other countries and has also provided vaccine doses to the global COVAX program under the auspices of the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi.

“India has not only successfully undertaken one of the largest Covid vaccination campaigns in the world, but has also already administered Covid vaccines to over 100 countries and will continue to help those in need,” said Balram Bhargava, Chief Executive of the Indian Council. of medical research and secretary in the department of health research.