On Friday, India created a new milestone by administering more than 2 crore Covid-19 vaccinations in a single day. The country is the first in the world to reach this vaccination target in one day. On this occasion, The Daily Guardian talked to Dr N.K. Arora, chief of National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI). Excerpts:
Q. Taking into consideration the speed of vaccination, do you believe we are on the right track to vaccinate the entire country by the end of 2021, as claimed by the government?
A: People thought that it would take us 3-5 years to inoculate the entire nation, but we will do so by the end of this year itself. It’s becoming possible because of several factors. One, right from the beginning, we have focused on becoming vaccine aatmanirbhar. Each and every vaccine administered in this country is made-in-India and that is why we are not begging anyone else. Two, the preparation for rollout started in July when corona vaccine centre planning was being done. Three, we have a very expensive child immunization framework and infrastructure and this vaccination has been put on that. Fourth, adults were being immunised for the first time and nobody was sure whether they would come up for vaccines or not. There was vaccine hesitancy even among the medical professionals for the first 6 to 8 weeks and there was a very proactive programme to take care of that. Fife, a major programme for managing and keeping a record of this supply system was present.
Co-Win is a phenomenal platform and I believe the country is very proud to have such a digital platform for the management. Finally, we have a genomic surveillance programme which is cutting-edge technology that monitors and picks up virus samples from all over the country to check how effective our vaccine is. I must recall here that we immunise 17 crore children every week under the Polio Immunisation Programme, that is 2.5 crore children being immunised each day. If we can do that, we can do this too.
Q. When can we expect children’s vaccination?
A. We are having meetings on prioritising adults and children separately. We have 44 crore children below 18 years of age and 12 crore adolescents between the age of 12 and 17 years of age. From October onwards, we will prioritise those children who are likely to catch severe disease and possible unfortunate death. Healthy children do get infected just like adults but the possibility of severe infection and death is almost zero. Now schools are also opening, and once the parents, teachers and other adults are immunised, children will remain in a protective ring.
Q. What is the status of the WHO’s approval of Covaxin?
A: We should most probably get it by this week or the next. Most of the paperwork has been going on for quite some time and we have already provided the data for the safety of the vaccine and hope that it should be done as soon as possible and people might commute from October onwards.
Q. Everyone is talking about the booster dose, what is the development on that front?
A: In a meeting, we were just discussing the efficacy of the vaccines and the vaccine tracker platform announced by the government last week. I would like to share that one dose is providing 97% protection from the virus, while two doses provide 98% efficacy and chances of hospitalisation is reduced by 95%. Several parts of the country are conducting studies to see that it is not just the antibodies that provide protection because their decline is a natural process. We are looking at the ground situation and when the scientific evidence comes, we will start with the booster shots as well and we will also identify the subgroups that require special attention. We are regularly scanning through the scientific evidence of our country, not relying on data provided by the US or any other nation. We will work on this data only.
Q. What would be your advice to the people this festive season?
A: With folded hands, I would say that the pandemic comes once in a century while festivals come each year. So we must have another year of discipline. Spend the days of festivities among your own family members. I may have been vaccinated but the virus can spread through me to others and similarly I could get infected too. Covid-appropriate behaviour and social distancing do not only mean keeping an arm’s distance from a person, but keeping away from the crowd. We have witnessed a spike during the festivities last time and hence I would request that people celebrate festivals with discipline this year.
Q. Would you second the claims on the third wave or would you deny?
A: About 70-75 percent of our population has already been infected now. There will be a spike driven by lack of discipline. Whenever we have let our guards down, we will invite a surge. Fortunately, no new variant has come and it is a redeeming point. It will not be wise on our part to not be disciplined for the coming 6 to 8 weeks.