Authorities say India needs to inoculate a critical mass and break coronavirus transmission weeks after Modi promised a vaccine for every citizen.
India may not need to vaccinate all of its 1.3 billion people if it succeeds in inoculating a critical mass and breaking transmission of the coronavirus, senior government officials said Tuesday.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the facilities of three vaccine manufacturers over the weekend, emphasized the importance of a vaccine to control COVID-19.
In October, he said the government was preparing to reach out to all citizens as soon as a vaccine was ready.
Experts from the World Health Organization have pointed out that a vaccine coverage rate of 65 to 70 percent is sufficient to achieve the immunity of the population.
“The government has never talked about vaccinating the whole country,” Rajesh Bhushan, the top bureaucrat in India’s federal Health Ministry, told a news conference Tuesday without referring to Modi.
India currently has the second highest number of coronavirus infections in the world, behind only the United States, with 9.46 million cases and 137,621 deaths.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in October that the government was preparing to reach out to all citizens as soon as a vaccine was ready. [Reuters]
The South Asian nation recorded 31,118 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the lowest daily count since Nov. 17, data from the Health Ministry showed.
“… If we are able to vaccinate a critical mass of people and break the transmission of the virus, we may not have to vaccinate the entire population,” said Balram Bhargava, Director General of the Medical Research Council of India, run by the state, at the press conference.
India’s plan to implement a COVID-19 injection in the first months of 2021 would not be affected by an alleged adverse reaction during AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine trial, Bhushan said.
A 40-year-old Indian man said in a complaint over the weekend that he had suffered severe “neurological and psychological” symptoms after receiving the vaccine in a trial conducted by the British drugmaker’s partner, Serum Institute of India.
The incident is currently under investigation.
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