Karnataka slips to 18th position in Covid-19 vaccination coverage

Karnataka, the state that once enjoyed the status of having vaccinated the highest number of beneficiaries in the country has slipped to the 18th position in terms of percentage and third place in the country in terms of absolute numbers.

Till Friday, it vaccinated 46.39% of its target beneficiaries - that is 7,73,362- as per figures provided by Press Information Bureau (7,42,702 according to state government). Till Friday, the state vaccinated 3,58,768 beneficiaries.

Karnataka has the third-highest number of healthcare workers registered for vaccination after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Even then, UP and Rajasthan have vaccinated more in absolute numbers, and MP and Maharashtra are catching up. “This has demotivated all of us including all senior officers in the department,” said a Health Department official requesting anonymity.

“Co-WIN has duplicated many beneficiaries’ names. Names of beneficiaries in nursing and paramedical colleges have been uploaded centrally but in these colleges, students have either gone home or are refusing to take the vaccines,” the official quoted above said.

However, epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu said vaccine hesitancy is a phrase that has to be used with caution.

“People are not vaccinated for many reasons. The detailed information regarding Covid vaccines came very late and is also incomplete. Not much of expertise, knowledge or resources are available to resolve queries. Instead of resolving queries that people have, a paternalistic approach of ‘take vaccines, they are good’ won’t help. Listening is more important than speaking here,” Babu said.

“Regulators did not provide adequate information to enthuse healthcare professionals. Added to this, some experts provided conflicting explanations on how these vaccines can be used. The net result is confusion everywhere,” he said.

“There are also several problems with the Co-WIN app. Many updates are happening in a dynamic manner. For example, it wasn’t allowing more vaccination sessions in the same site but now it allows up to seven per site. I am hesitant in clubbing these and other reasons into one phrase -- ‘vaccine hesitancy’. This is a confusing term and shifts responsibility from implementers to the often helpless and powerless people,” he argued.

Four experts in the forefront of the vaccination drive in Karnataka discussed issues and concerns that are being encountered in Covid vaccination in the state in a panel discussion moderated by Dr S Sacchidanand, Vice-Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Health Sciences.

Dr U S Vishal Rao, Associate Dean, Centre of Academic Research, Health Care Global (HCG) Cancer Centre, said, “Based on the Covaxin phase 1 trial results published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, the efficacy of Covaxin is not established from this phase 1 study. We will have to wait for phase 3 trial data.”