Covid-19 Vaccine Matters: Government battles misinformation, hesitancy in bid to scale up vaccination

Disease experts and doctors have cautioned that a race towards resuming business as usual would compromise vaccination efforts

With the fear of a looming third Covid-19 wave, the government has shifted focus to the scale of vaccinations, looking at a huge target of administering at least 1 crore doses daily.

So far, Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered to over 26.86 crore people, out of which 5 crore have been given to those in the age group of 18 to 44 years, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday.

However, the government's vaccination drive, which started on Jan. 16 this year, has been marred with snags, including misinformation, non-Covid-19-appropriate behaviour and vaccine hesitancy. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday countered a social media campaign, which claimed that newborn calf serum was present in the Covid-19 vaccine. "The final vaccine does not contain newborn calf serum at all," the minister said. "The calf serum is not an ingredient of the final vaccine product."

Meanwhile, several experts questioned the government's decision to increase the gap for Covishield's second dose to 16 weeks, instead of 12 weeks or 14 weeks. The Union government asserted that its decision was taken on the basis of a unanimous recommendation of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), which analysed the available scientific information.

Amid the debate over the gap between doses, NTAGI chief Dr N K Arora said that a single dose of the vaccine was 61 per cent effective against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, citing a Public Health England study. However, the sample size of the study was very small, Dr Arora said.

India, a perpetual paradox, is oscillating between the fear of not getting the jab and the fear of getting it. Many wait anxiously for their turn to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, while others are running away from vaccinators. Vaccine hesitancy, however, is not a new story in India and a look at the country's long-drawn-out battle against polio may help understand vaccine hesitancy.

A new study suggests that Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna do not harm male fertility. The study found the levels of sperm in participants remained at healthy levels after they got two doses of the mRNA preventive.

The second Covid-19 wave across the country has been declining steadily and many states and Union Territories have started easing Covid-19 curbs.

When the Covid-19 curbs eased in New Delhi on Tuesday, thousands of commuters were seen crowding into underground train stations and shopping malls. This prompted doctors to warn that such behaviour could lead to a resurgence in Covid-19 infections.

Another worry in the ongoing vaccination drive is the gender gap. Indian women are lagging men in getting the jabs. At present, there is a 15 per cent gap between the number of men and women who have got at least one dose of vaccination. Worryingly, this gap has widened in recent months. On April 10, there was a 2 per cent disparity between vaccinated men and women. This rose to 12 per cent on April 24 and 24 per cent on May 6. The gender gap in vaccinations is highest in Jammu and Kashmir, followed by Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, while Kerala and Chhattisgarh deserve praise.

Maharashtra, which has fully vaccinated 50 lakh people so far, is worried that the highly virulent 'Delta Plus' variant of the virus could fuel a third wave. The number of active patients could reach up to eight lakh, while 10 per cent out of them could be children, according to the presentation made by the state health department.

States like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala have started preparations to face the next wave, ramping up healthcare infrastructure, conducting genomic sequencing of Covid-19-hit children as well as training paediatricians on how to treat children. The Serum Institute of India is planning to start clinical trials of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine that can be used for children. Novavax’s recombinant nanoparticle protein-based vaccine, Covovax, has shown promising results in its Phase 3 trials in the US, the UK and Mexico and the Centre is keen to start vaccine trials on children.

The Modi government is looking at offering nearly Rs 50,000 crore in credit incentives to boost healthcare infrastructure in the nation.

The Reserve Bank of India is of the view that speed and scale of vaccination against Covid-19 can shape the path of economic recovery, which has the resilience and the fundamentals to bounce back from the pandemic.

While the peak daily vaccination rate attained till date is 42.65 lakh, the government is of the view that "doubling the shifts and possibly vaccinating 24x7 for a couple of months can enable the ambitious, but possible, throughput of 1 crore shots a day".