The Centre is gearing up for vaccinating those over 50 years of age, and the process is likely to begin soon. "We have had a very positive experience [with vaccination of the first two priority groups], 4-5 lakh persons are being vaccinated everyday at about 10,000 sites. Based on that, we are now fast gearing up to move ahead to our third group [of vaccinees] and will be informing you of the details in the coming days," Dr V.K. Paul, member, Niti Aayog, told the media.
"We are gaining speed, with over 63 lakh vaccinations, we are fast reaching the number of one crore. We may proceed faster in the coming days, since we have to vaccinate a larger group now. Those who are left among healthcare and frontline workers should now come forward and embrace the vaccine," Paul added.
The central government has also set deadlines for the vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers—states have been asked to schedule all remaining healthcare workers for their first dose on the Cowin app by February 20; the rest, if any, have been asked to conduct mop up rounds and schedule them by February 24.
For frontline workers, the scheduling via Cowin app should happen by the first of March, and subsequently, mop-up rounds should be done by March 6, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said. "Those who are missed in the mop-up rounds [for both healthcare and frontline workers] will then be included in the age appropriate group for scheduling their vaccination," Bhushan added.
At least 12 states/UTs, he said, had been doing rather well with 65 per cent or more healthcare workers vaccinated with the first dose. These include Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand and Kerala. Eleven states/UTs, he said, were still lagging behind with less than 40 per cent healthcare workers getting their first dose. These include Puducherry (15 per cent) and Delhi (38.9 per cent).
On AEFIs reported among vaccinees, Paul said that one in 1,400 had reported mild pain and fever. A total of 4,303 incidents of AEFI had been reported for 6.3 million vaccinations. "The percentage of AEFIs among vaccinees is less than one per cent; as of yesterday it stands at 0.07 per cent. This shows that our vaccines are safe. We must take them and earn our herd immunity through them," Paul said.
Discussing the national AEFI meeting of experts on February 5, Bhushan said that while eight AEFI cases were brought for the experts' consideration, five cases were assessed. Of these five, three were cases of hospitalisation and two were deaths.
"Among hospitalisation, two cases were diagnosed as anaphylaxis, which are vaccine product related and known reactions, and one was diagnosed as syncope, which is classified as immunisation triggered stress response (anxiety reaction)," Bhushan said. The deaths were diagnosed as having occurred due to an acute coronary event with ventricular fibrillation, which is said to be coincidental, while one had occurred due to a hypertensive emergency with intracranial bleed with chronic kidney disease. Both deaths have been classified as coincidental and not related to vaccination. For the other three deaths, Bhushan said that the national AEFI committee had deferred the assessments and called for histopathology and chemical analysis reports.
On the emerging concern over the Astra Zeneca vaccine's failure to prevent mild to moderate disease in those with the South African variant of SARS-COV2, Paul said that there was no concern over the vaccine's [Covishield's] use in India, since the vaccine's efficacy to prevent severe disease and death had been proven [in earlier Phase 3 interim analysis]. Paul also said that in the coming weeks, there would be other vaccines coming in—Russia's Sputnik V, the indigenous Zydus Cadilla and US-based Johnson & Johnson that has expressed interest in making its COVID-19 vaccine in India.
However, Paul said that as of now, public health priority groups including the vulnerable persons were to be the recipients of the vaccine. For those outside of the priority groups, it would take a few more months before the vaccines could be made available, he said.
