COVID-19 vaccination drive to have minimal impact on routine health services, says govt

Prioritised age group, or those who are above 50 years of age, will also be administered the vaccine. According to NEGVAC, there are about 27 crore people in India who fall into that category.

Moneycontrol News

Dec 8, 2020 / 05:04 PM IST

COVID-19 vaccine (representative image)

Stating that the COVID-19 vaccination drive will have minimal impact on routine health services, the Union Health Ministry on December 8 released the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC)'s recommendation on priorotised population groups that need to be administered the vaccine first.

According to the recommendation, over 1 crore healthcare providers and workers in healthcare settings of both private and public hospitals will be administered the vaccine.

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In addition, frontline workers including personnel from state and central police, armed forces, home guards, civil defence and disaster management volunteers and municipal workers will be administered a shot when it becomes available.

Prioritised age group, or those who are above 50 years of age, will also be administered the vaccine. According to NEGVAC, there are about 27 crore people in India who fall into that category.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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