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India misses year-end target to fully vax all adults

India fell short of its target to fully vaccinate all adults by the end of the year even as the country has administered over 144 crore jabs.

Over 65% of India’s roughly 94 crore adults had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as of Dec. 31, according to data on the CoWin dashboard. Over 90% of the adults have received at least one shot of the vaccine.

That comes as Covid-19 cases have started rising across the country again, with the dominant Delta variant and highly infectious Omicron variant of the virus threatening to trigger a third wave of the pandemic.

Part of the failure to meet the target has been due to unrealised vaccine supply. In an affidavit to the Supreme Court detailing vaccine supply, the government estimated that India will procure 135 crore vaccine doses between August and December.

However, about a third of that supply was from vaccines that were neither approved nor fully developed. Since then, those vaccines have been approved but haven’t started to be administered yet—Serum Institute’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin continue to be the two widely administered ones.

Supply snags and policy U-turns were an early feature in India’s vaccination drive—one of the largest such efforts in the world. The government opened up vaccinations for medical workers in January 2021 and followed it by expanding it to senior citizens. The shortage hit most when the India opened up vaccinations for all adults and asked states to independently procure doses for the 18-to-44 age group from May.

States scrambled to get doses as the second wave of Covid-19 ravaged the country. Following intervention by the Supreme Court itself, the central government reversed its policy and said it will do all procurement itself.

Since then, shortages eased and vaccination improved across the country. The number of vaccination sites have increased from 34,000 in July to over 90,000 in December, with the emphasis now on giving the second dose.

Among states, Uttar Pradesh has administered over 20.1 crore shots, the highest among in the country. It is followed by Maharashtra with 13.3 crore and West Bengal with 10.5 crore.

At the current pace, it would still take over three months to fully vaccinate the adult population.

That could improve soon with more vaccines on the way. The Health Ministry has granted emergency use approval to two more vaccines—Corbevax and Covovax—taking the total number of approved vaccines to eight. There’s no clear timeline on when they will be available.

Vaccine Split
Serum Institute’s Covishield is the most widely administered vaccine in India. (In Crore)

With a large portion of the adult population covered, the government is now shifting focus to children and those who might need a third booster dose.

The government will start “precautionary” or booster doses for frontline workers and for people above the age of 60 years, suffering from comorbidities. The drive will begin on Jan. 10. However, it can be taken only if nine months or more have passed since the individual has received their second Covid-19 shot, according to a Health Ministry statement.

Teens in the age group of 15-18 years will also be eligible for the vaccine from Jan. 3. Covaxin will be the only available option for this group.

The government also intends to soon introduce nasal and DNA-based vaccines to speed up vaccinations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his address on Dec. 25. “We have conducted the world’s largest vaccination campaign so far. In the time to come, we have to speed it up and expand it.” BloombergQuint

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