Therefore, Tamil Nadu should receive more doses of the vaccine than Bihar, Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan despite having less population. Bihar’s projected population of 12.3 crore is roughly 60% larger than TN’s 7.6 crore, but only 1.8 crore of its population is 50 or older, compared to TN’s 2 crore.
States with younger populations, such as Bihar, also have a lower proportion of people affected by comorbidities. In Kerala, on the other hand, almost 30% of the population, about 1 crore of people, are over 50 years old and have a high prevalence of diabetes and hypertension, making it the state with the highest percentage of people in the priority category.
The government is preparing to vaccinate about 19.5% of the population that makes up the age group 50 and over. This will mean around 26.5 million people, in addition to the 1 million million health workers and 4 million people with diabetes in the age group under 50 years.
Therefore, the distribution of Covid vaccines will skew towards states with older populations. However, Uttar Pradesh, where only 15% of people are over the age of 50, will continue to receive the majority of vaccinations due to its large population size.
Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, in that order, are next in terms of their 50+ population. However, Kerala tops the list of states for the percentage of the population in need of vaccination. Recently released data from the 2019-20 National Family Health Survey for 17 states and 5 union territories shows that Kerala has the highest proportion of people with diabetes (25.3%) and hypertension (13.7%).
While 3.6 million people are eligible for priority vaccination in UP, Maharashtra follows with 22% of its population, or 2.7 million people, over the age of 50. It also has a high proportion of people with diabetes and hypertension, which would increase the number of people who need to be vaccinated. As the severity of Covid with comorbidities such as hypertension and diabetes increases, the Center has decided to vaccinate even those under 50 years of age who suffer from these conditions.
A recently published article based on data from NFHS 201516 estimates that around 6.5% of adults under the age of 50 have diabetes. Since new National Family Health Survey data for major states such as UP, MP, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana and Chhattisgarh have not yet been released, the number of diabetics and hypertensive there is unknown.
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