New Delhi: As India achieved a historic milestone of administering 100 crore Covid vaccines on Thursday, experts from the health sector have expressed confidence that India can definitely achieve its aim of vaccinating all adult populations by December this year.
"I believe by December this year, India will be able to vaccinate all people above the age of 18 years. However, all the unscientific talks on the vaccination process need to be nullified by the government," said Indian Medical Association (IMA) president Dr JA Jayalal while speaking to ETV Bharat. He said that there were apprehensions over vaccine when the country launched the vaccination drive on January 16.
"We (IMA) came forward and all our members got the jabs just to show to the world that the vaccines are safe," said Dr Jayalal. Statistics said that 56,76,16,345 people in the age group of 18-44 years, 28,05,12,540 people between 45 and 60 years and 17,08,96,276 people above the age group of 60 years and above got Covid-19 vaccination till date.
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India crossed 100 crore milestone of vaccination with 70,95,52,033 people got the first dose and 29,36,52,256 people got the second dose from 87,725 vaccination sites. Amongst these 85,215 are government vaccination centres and 2,510 are private vaccination centres. "There is a huge difference in the number of people getting first and second doses of vaccines. We have to minimise the gap so that we can achieve our target of vaccinating all adult population by December this year," said Suneela Garg, national president of Organised Medicine Academic Guild (OMAG).
Statistics for age-wise distribution of people from 2010 to 2020 shows that 26.16 per cent of the population falls in the age group of 0-14 years, 67.27 per cent of people fall in the age group of 15-64 years and 6.57 per cent of people fall in the age group of 65 years and above. "To achieve the target of inoculating all adult population by December this year, we need to expedite the availability of other vaccines as well," said Dr Garg, who is also an Indian advisor in World Health Organisation.
She also emphasised the need to remove vaccine hesitancy. "There is still a large section of the adult population, who has vaccine hesitancy...we need to remove their hesitancy and encourage them to get the vaccination," added Dr Garg. On September 17, India achieved a milestone of administering two crore doses in a single day to mark the 71st birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India at present is using three Covid-19 vaccines that include Oxford AstraZeneca and Serum Institute of India (SII's) Civishield, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and Russian made Sputnik V. Moreover, Bharat Biotech's nasal vaccine, Corbevax vaccine of Biological E are also in the offing. "Once we get more vaccines in our hands, we will be able to inoculate crores of people in a single day," said Dr Garg.
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It may be mentioned that all adult population of nine states and UTs, including Andaman & Nicobar Island, Chandigarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Lakshadweep, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Dadra, and Nagar Haveli have received the first dose of vaccines. Meanwhile, government statistics said that 103.5 crore vaccines have been provided to the States and UTs by the Central government whereas 10.85 crore vaccines are still available with the States and UTs.
