92% Covid deaths in India in 2022 among unvaccinated: ICMR chief

Based on data from 74 crore fully vaccinated and 5 crore unvaccinated persons, the ICMR chief said the Covid-19 vaccine is 99.3% effective in preventing deaths

Nearly 92 per cent of Covid deaths in India in 2022 occurred in unvaccinated individuals, top health ministry officials said here on Thursday, underscoring the need for completing the two dose-vaccination regimen for better protection against serious disease and hospitalisation.

“During 2022, 92 per cent of deaths have been due to unvaccinated individuals. India experienced a considerably lower number of cases and a considerably lower number of deaths (than other countries) during the Omicron surge,” Balram Bhargava, director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.

Powered by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the six-week-long third wave between early January to mid-February had 3.47 lakh daily new cases at its peak as against 4.14 lakh daily new cases seen at the height of the Delta-driven second wave, which was also a ferocious one with high mortality.

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Bhargava and other officials attributed widespread vaccination as the single-most important reason behind lower casualty in the third wave even though experts had pointed out that Omicron was less virulent compared to Delta.

“It is evident that vaccines and wide vaccination coverage have played a very important role in protecting hundreds of lives. The vaccine has protected the nation from a surge in the number of Covid cases,” said VK Paul, Member-Health, Niti Aayog and the government’s principal advisor on Covid-19.

Bhargava, however, observed that Covishield and Covaxin had a significantly lower ability to generate antibodies against the Omicron variant in laboratory experiments.

Covaxin-induced antibodies had 23-fold reduction and Covishield-induced antibodies 24-fold reduction in neutralisation capacity against Omicron compared with 3-fold and 4-fold reduction against the Delta variant, Bhargava explained sharing scientific data.

Such results, according to experts, would mean that individuals receiving the two vaccines would be susceptible to Omicron, but they would nevertheless be guarded against serious disease by other arms of the immunity that individuals had developed due to vaccination or prior infection or both.

Based on data from 74 crore fully vaccinated and 5 crore unvaccinated persons, the ICMR chief said the Covid-19 vaccine is 99.3 per cent effective in preventing deaths.

The case fatality rate (deaths among lab-confirmed cases) has been 0.35 per cent during the third wave compared with 1.29 per cent during the second wave, even taking into account the addition of earlier deaths by states through auditing exercises.

India lost around 27,000 people to Covid-19 during the six-week-long third surge this year compared with over 2,52,000 Covid-19 deaths during the 16-week long second wave from mid-March through mid-July last year. The official death toll is over five lakh though multiple studies have suggested that the actual Covid death is probably above 30 lakh.

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