On May 28, 2021, Prakash Javadekar, the then Information and Broadcasting Minister, announced that India would fully vaccinate (give both doses of the COVID vaccine) its entire adult population by the end of 2021. However, India with over 52 crore fully vaccinated adults has only administered the COVID-19 vaccine to 55 per cent of its 18+ population.
The country's 18+ population stands at 93.9 crore, according to Dr Bharati Pawar, Minister of State, Health, in a reply made to the Rajya Sabha yesterday. The country would need close to 188 crore vaccine doses to vaccinate its entire adult population. According to the CoWin dashboard, the country has totally administered over 134 crore vaccine doses. In the public sector, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has distributed over 140 crore vaccine doses to the states and the states still have not used close to 17 crore doses.
With over 82 crore people receiving the first dose, at least 80 per cent of the adult population has received the first dose of either Covaxin or Covishield. Around 30 crore people are yet to receive the second dose and vaccinating them in 15 days will require India to dispense close to two crore vaccines daily only for the second dose. So far, India has given over two crore vaccine doses only once on September 17, on the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday.
India has managed to administer over 10 million- 1 crore vaccine doses in a single day about 10 times since vaccination was initiated on January 16, 2021. India has the capacity to achieve 1 crore vaccination doses on a daily basis but the uptake is plagued by problems such as access, availability, production, hesitancy, and the Indian festival season.
The Ministry has also accepted that they will not be able to meet their target and has thus reworked what it wants to achieve. The government now intends to achieve at least 90 per cent of the adult population receiving one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Vaccine Production and Availability
India has approved six vaccines for emergency use but only three are part of the vaccination program.
Apart from the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, and the Gamaleya Institute's Sputnik, Moderna's mRNA vaccine, Johnson's adenoviral vaccine and Zydus' DNA vaccine are yet to be launched in India.
Earlier this year, Indian officials had claimed that India would have close to 216 crore vaccine doses between the months of August-December 2021 from different vaccine players. The government later reduced this estimation to 135 crore doses.
Bharat Biotech's production capacity has also been a constant cause of worry for the government. There have been several instances where the Ministry has overestimated the number of doses they would receive from the manufacturer.
While Bharat Biotech earlier produced close to 90 lakh doses every month which was augmented to two crore doses in May, the company as well as the government promised that Bharat Biotech would produce close to 10 crore doses a month by September. However, Bharat Biotech failed to meet this deadline. By August-September, the company raised its production capacity to five crore doses and in November with the help of other public sector units, it might be able to achieve the 10 crore doses per month mark.
The government has also restarted the 'Vaccine Maitri' program to export vaccines and letting the manufacturers meet their Covax agreements.
The 84-day Covishield Interval
India follows an 84-day interval between the two doses of the Covishield vaccine. Owing to this, any individual who received their first vaccine dose in October can only receive their second shot in January 2022.
This interval was adopted after studies in the UK showed that a longer interval between the two doses leads to an increase in antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 variant. The UK, however, returned to 28-day interval schedule after cases in the country increased. However, the Indian government has no plans to reduce the 84-day interval in the country.
Vaccine Hesitancy
The vaccine uptake witnessed a dip after reports about adverse events following immunisation started doing the rounds. Several anti-vaccination groups leveraged this hesitancy and further fueled it by linking any deaths by cardiac arrests or heart attacks to the vaccine.
The festive season of Diwali saw a decrease in the number of people choosing to get vaccinated. However, the emergence of the new Omicron variant helped in shedding vaccine hesitance and several cities reported an increase in vaccination rates after the new variant was reported.
Anti-vaxxers are still spreading their agenda on social media platforms such as Telegram and Twitter. While Twitter has a policy to curb misinformation, Telegram has no such framework in place.