Health workers in India reluctant to take homegrown vaccine
Lahore, 24th February: India is struggling to convince its health workers to take the homegrown vaccine for the novel coornavirus.
Baaghi TV: India is fighting to convince its health and front-line workers to take a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine controversially approved without late-stage efficacy data.
As per reports, the country has the world’s second-highest number of COVID-19 infections after the United States, following the decline in mask-wearing and social distancing restrictions.
Sources say that a lack of confidence in a homegrown vaccine could prevent India from meeting its target of vaccinating 300 million of its 1.35 billion people by August.
According to the data, India has vaccinated more than 10.5 million health and front-line workers since its vaccination campaign started on Jan 16.
The locally developed vaccine COVAXIN from Bharat Biotech has only been taken by 1.2 million people so far or about 11%, while the remaining 9.4 million have used the vaccine from AstraZeneca, according to the government’s Co-Win online platform used to track the vaccination drive.
India’s federal government has so far ordered 10 million doses of COVAXIN and 21 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot. The government says it has received at least 5.5 million COVAXIN doses.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, who advises the Maharashtra state government on vaccine strategy said, “It’s all because of the initial discussion about how COVAXIN was only an experimental vaccine, how it had not completed the Phase-3 trial.”
He added, “These things created doubts in the minds of people, resulting in lesser acceptance. The availability is not a concern at this juncture.”
Earlier this month, Chhattisgarh, an opposition-ruled state of 32 million people, told the federal government it would not use COVAXIN until its efficiency could be proven in an ongoing late-stage trial. Epidemiologist and public health experts have also criticised the COVAXIN approval as rushed.
Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech has informed efficacy data from the trial on nearly 26,000 volunteers will be out soon. The company, along with India’s drug regulator, says the vaccine is safe and effective based on early and intermediate studies.
However, Bharat Biotech did not respond to the lower uptake of its vaccine.
As per reports from Baaghi TV, India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 11,046,914 on Thursday as 16,738 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, the latest data from the federal health ministry showed.
According to the official data, the death toll mounted to 156,705 as 138 COVID-19 patients died since Wednesday morning. There are still 151,708 active cases in the country, while 10,738,501 people have been discharged so far from hospitals after medical treatment.
There was a decrease of 4,801 active cases during the previous 24 hours. The number of active cases in India had seen a rise over the past few days
Stay tuned to Baaghi TV to read all the latest news and updates!
