India’s huge vaccine campaign driven by Modi receiving injection

Source: Prime Minister of India Narendra

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After a Slow start, India’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign – one of the largest in the world – has jumped almost four times after the country opened it until more people and obtained a crucial public endorsement with the inoculation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Almost 21 million shots were fired administered in India so far, up from 5.4 million a month ago, according to data compiled until Sunday by Bloomberg and Johns Hopkins University. The number of doses per 100 people also rose from 0.41 to 1.56. A record 1.6 million Indians received the Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday, the data show.

After an initially lukewarm response – due in part to the controversial approval of a vaccine developed at home before completing clinical trials – the vaccination campaign gained some momentum after Modi took the injection on March 1 and urged others to do the same . India has also opened up the implementation to all citizens over 60 years of age and those aged 45 and over with comorbidities, either free of charge at a state center or for a fee of up to 250 rupees ($ 3.40) in private hospitals.

Some of the largest companies operating in the country have said they will cover the vaccination costs of their employees and family, including Accenture Plc, Infosys Ltd. and Reliance Industries Ltd., owned by the richest man in Asia, Mukesh Ambani. “With your support, we will soon be able to put this pandemic behind us”, Nita Ambani, director of Reliance and wife of Mukesh, said in a letter to employees seen by Bloomberg.

“A large number of people are coming,” Azad Moopen, the chairman of Dubai council Aster DM Health care Ltd., which operates 13 private hospitals in India, said in an interview Friday. But there is still a “huge gap” to be filled for India to reach its vaccination goals.

Confidence boost

Together with Injection of AstraZeneca Plc, India also authorized the use of Covaxin, a vaccine developed by the company based in Hyderabad Bharat Biotech International Ltd., which initially caused hesitation among medical and frontline workers. It passed in early January, before completing human testing of the final stage.

Bharat Biotech announced earlier this month that Covaxin showed a 81% strong effectiveness in people without a previous infection after a second dose. Modi was also injected with Covaxin, developed locally – a move that may have helped boost confidence.

India will need all of these favorable winds to meet its goal of inoculating about a quarter of its population by August. Maintaining the momentum of vaccination is it is not always easy, as the Hong Kong experience shows. In addition, with increasing demand, there may be a shortage of supply in India, unless bottlenecks are eased quickly.