India began vaccinating health workers on Saturday in what is probably the largest COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the world, joining the ranks of the wealthiest nations where the effort is already underway.
India is home to the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world and has one of the largest immunization programs. But there is no manual for the enormity of the current challenge.
Indian authorities are planning an initial round of 300 million vaccinations – roughly the population of the United States. Beneficiaries will include 30 million doctors, nurses and other frontline workers, to be followed by 270 million people over the age of 50 or have underlying medical conditions.
Madhura Patil, a health professional, gestures while receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in the presence of Uddhav Thackeray, in a white dress, Chief Minister of State for Maharashtra in Mumbai, India, Saturday, January 16, 2021. India started vaccinating health professionals On Saturday, in what is probably the world’s largest vaccination campaign COVID-19, joining the ranks of the wealthiest nations, where the effort is already underway. (AP Photo / Rajanish Kakade)
For health professionals who helped the nation to face the deadly scourge, the injections offered hope that life could begin to return to normal soon.
“I’m excited to be one of the first to get the vaccine,” said Gita Devi, a nurse, as she raised her left sleeve to receive the injection.
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“I am happy to receive a vaccine made in India and that we do not have to rely on third parties for this,” said Devi, who treated patients at a hospital in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, in the heart of India.
The first dose was administered to a sanitation worker at the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the campaign with a speech broadcast on national television.
A Kashmir doctor receives a COVID-19 vaccine at a government hospital in Srinagar, Kashmir controlled by India, Saturday, January 16, 2021. India started vaccinating health workers on Saturday in what is probably the biggest vaccination campaign COVID-19 in the world, joining the ranks of the wealthiest nations, where the effort is already underway. (AP Photo / Dar Yasin)
“We are launching the largest vaccination campaign in the world and that shows the world our capacity,” said Modi. He pleaded with citizens not to believe “rumors” questioning the safety of vaccines.
It is not clear whether Modi, 70, received the vaccine. His government said that politicians will not be considered priority groups in the first phase of the launch.
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Health officials have not specified what percentage of India’s nearly 1.4 billion people will be targeted by the campaign. But experts say it will almost certainly be the largest COVID vaccination campaign in the world.
The absolute scale, however, has its obstacles. For example, India plans to rely heavily on a digital platform to track vaccine shipment and delivery. But public health experts point out that the internet remains uneven in large parts of the country and non-existent in some remote areas.
A hospital team receives a COVID-19 vaccine at a government hospital in Srinagar, Kashmir controlled by India, on Saturday, January 16, 2021. India began vaccinating health workers on Saturday in what is probably the world’s largest health campaign. vaccination COVID-19, joining the ranks of the wealthiest nations, where the effort is already well underway. (AP Photo / Dar Yasin)
About 100 people were due to be vaccinated in each of the 3,006 centers across the country on the first day, the Ministry of Health said.
News cameras captured injections in hundreds of hospitals, reinforcing repressed hopes that vaccination would be the first step in overcoming the pandemic that devastated the lives of so many Indians and affected the country’s economy.
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On January 4, India approved the emergency use of two vaccines, one developed by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, based in the United Kingdom, and another by the Indian company Bharat Biotech. Cargo planes flew 16.5 million shots to different Indian cities last week.
But doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine grown locally are creating obstacles to the ambitious plan.
The hospital team analyzes the documents before the COVID-19 vaccination campaign at a hospital in Calcutta, India, Saturday, January 16, 2021. India began inoculating health workers on Saturday in what is probably the largest vaccination campaign COVID-19 in the world, joining the ranks of the wealthiest nations where the effort is already underway. (AP Photo / Bikas Das)
Health experts fear that the regulatory shortcut taken to approve the Bharat Biotech vaccine without waiting for hard data to show its effectiveness in preventing coronavirus disease could amplify the vaccine’s hesitation. At least one state health minister has opposed its use.
In New Delhi, doctors at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, one of the largest in the city, demanded that they receive the AstraZeneca vaccine instead of the one developed by Bharat Biotech. A hospital doctors’ union said many of its members were “a little apprehensive about the lack of a complete test” for the internally developed vaccine.
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“At the moment, we don’t have an option to choose between vaccines,” said Dr. Nirmalaya Mohapatra, vice president of the hospital’s Association of Medical Residents.
India’s Ministry of Health was angered by the criticism and said both vaccines are safe.
The hospital team gathers around a seated health professional after she received a COVID-19 vaccine at a government hospital in Hyderabad, India, on Saturday, January 16, 2021. India started vaccinating workers from health on Saturday in what is probably the world’s largest COVID 19 vaccination campaign, joining the ranks of the wealthiest nations where the effort is already well underway. (AP Photo / Mahesh Kumar A.)
According to Dr. SP Kalantri, director of a rural hospital in Maharashtra, the hardest hit state in India, such an approach was worrying. He said regulatory approval was hasty.
“In a hurry to be populist, the government (is) making decisions that may not be in the interest of the common man,” said Kalantri.
Against the backdrop of the growing global number of COVID-19 deaths – reaching 2 million on Friday – time is running out to vaccinate as many people as possible.
In wealthy countries, including the United States, Britain, Israel, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have already received some measure of protection with at least one dose of vaccines developed with revolutionary speed and quickly authorized for use.
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But elsewhere, immunization initiatives are barely off the ground. Many experts are predicting yet another year of losses and difficulties in places like Iran, India, Mexico and Brazil, which together account for about a quarter of COVID-19 deaths worldwide.
India is in second place, behind the United States, with 10.5 million confirmed cases, and in third place in number of deaths, behind the USA and Brazil, with 152,000.
More than 35 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccines have been administered worldwide, according to the University of Oxford.
Although most vaccine doses available were purchased by wealthy countries, COVAX, a UN-backed project to provide vaccines to developing parts of the world, found itself without vaccines, money and logistical aid.
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As a result, World Health Organization chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan warned this week that it is highly unlikely that herd immunity – which would require at least 70% of the globe to be vaccinated – will be achieved this year.
“Even if it happens in some pockets, in some countries, it is not going to protect people around the world,” she said.