Vaccination Age Group Expansion Should Have Been Deferred: Central Covid Panel

New Delhi- According to the head of the Centre's COVID-19 working group, India had prioritized Covid vaccination by age group primarily to minimize mortality, but the extension of that criterion has now resulted in an acute shortage.

According to Dr. NK Arora, chairman of the central panel, there is still enough vaccine for the earlier target community. 

"Expanding the age group to 18-45...clearly there is no vaccine available, there is a shortage. I would say this (expansion) should have been deferred for a while," Dr Arora said. 

"In a simple way, prioritisation was done sometime in September October last year. And it was very clear, as per the availability, that the immediate purpose of vaccination will be to reduce morbidity and mortality. And, obviously, the highest-risk population is to be targeted," he said. 

According to Dr. Arora, who is also a member of India's National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization, people above the age of 45 years and frontline workers were chosen for inoculation for this reason. 

"And even today, there is sufficient vaccine to take care of them till July, and 50-55 crore doses will be available for them," he said. 

"Many of us feel that vaccines will come if we put out tenders, but that is not correct. There is hardly any vaccine available globally because these are highly committed manufacturing, cornered by some of the high-income countries," he said emphasising the lack of vaccines abroad. 

The Centre declared earlier this week about its plan to provide over 200 crore doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of the year, despite the government facing criticism for mismanagement of the inoculation drive. 

India, in an attempt to reduce the mortality rate of the infection, made all adults above the age of 18 eligible for inoculation, marking it the largest vaccination drive in the world. Despite the fact that India is the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, it was followed by a slowdown in vaccinations. 

India, which is currently under the demonic grasp of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, on Friday registered 3,43,144 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the country's total caseload to 2,40,46,809. 3,980 COVID-induced fatalities have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the total death count to 2,62,317. On December 19, the COVID-19 count in India passed the ten million mark, and in less than six months, it had doubled, surpassing the dreadful landmark of 20 million cases on May 4. While on a positive note, this is the fourth time in the last five days that recoveries have outnumbered daily cases.

Also read- COVID-19 Situation in India 'Hugely Concerning', the WHO Chief Points Out

Also watch- Can your pet get the COVID-19? How to protect them from COVID-19