Pace of Covid booster dose administration slackening in the country

The pace of administering booster doses is yet to pick up in India. According to the data available on CoWIN, the number of booster doses administered has come down over the past weeks.

While 37,04,876 jabs were administered between January 8 and 14, in the past seven days (February 12 to 18), the number fell by more than 20 lakh. Only 16,16,089 booster doses were administered in this period. The numbers started falling from the January 29-February 4 period. As of February 20, a total of 1,79,10,099 booster doses have been administered across the country.

India started administering booster doses on January 10 to health and frontline workers and immunocompromised senior citizens. This also coincided with the time when the Omicron variant-led third wave began in the country. On the first day, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, around 10 lakh doses were administered. However, the ministry had also notified that those eligible for the jabs could get it only nine months after receiving the second dose of the vaccine. This means, only those who were fully vaccinated in April 2021 and are seniors with comorbidities could get their precautionary or booster dose in January.

Dr Oommen John, Senior Public Health Expert, George Institute for Global Health points out a few probable reasons for this. “During the third wave, a large number of people got infected by Covid, compared to the first and the second waves. Now even after you test negative you have to wait for a window of around 90 days to get a dose of vaccine,” he points out. “People may have been hesitant about going to a health facility, fearing that they may contract the virus from there. Also, we must look at the proportion of the population who is actually eligible for the booster dose,” he adds.

Dr John also says that there haven’t been much of an effort from the government’s side to promote booster doses. “Earlier, frontline workers were given a target of vaccinating a certain number of people. I do not think that happened with the booster dose,” he says.

At the same time, Dr K R Antony, Former Director, State Health Resource Centre, Chhattisgarh believes that the pace of administering booster jabs isn’t picking up owing to the less severity of the Omicron variant. “During the third wave, we did not see a lot of mortalities or hospitalisations,” he says. While daily deaths peaked during the first week of February, the numbers are now on a constant decline. “People have started treating Omicron like the common flu. We did not hear of an alarming situation of oxygen shortage like earlier. This could be one of the reasons why the numbers aren’t that high,” he adds.

Falling number of vaccine doses
Since the beginning of 2022, the number of vaccine doses has been falling across the country, according to the CoWIN data. While 5,47,61,236 doses were administered between January 1 and 7, between February 12 and 18, only 2,27,56,830 jabs were administered.

Between these days, India had started vaccinating people between the ages of 15 and 18, apart from administering booster doses. At the same time, according to the government, on December 30, 2021, 90 per cent of the eligible population had received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine. Also, India has administered a total of 1,75,39,42,594 vaccine doses until now. The Outreach