India’s vaccination strategy for children will largely depend on the availability of doses, said VK Paul, Niti Aayog Member (Health). Currently, two vaccines – Covaxin and one from Zydus Cadila – are undergoing trials to be administered among children and it may not take long before the results are out, he said at the media briefing here on Friday.
Responding to a question on when will India start vaccinating children and the vaccine that would be used, he said: “On the issue of which vaccine to be used I am pleased to inform you that not only Covaxin is conducting trials on children (and they will not take long), but also Zydus vaccine is being tested. So, when Zydus comes for approval, hopefully, in next two weeks, maybe, we will have enough data to take a view on whether that vaccine can be given to children.”
“So, the short answer is we have to take a decision on vaccine A is suitable and vaccine B is behind in the queue.
“But the availability of maximum vaccines will be the basis for the vaccination of children in India as the cohort of children between 12-18 years is quite large in India at around 13-14 crore, for which we need 25-26 crore doses. We need to take this into account,” said Paul.
On the issue of emergency use listing (EUL) of Covaxin by World Health Organisation (WHO), Paul said the government is pursuing with Bharat Biotech and WHO and sharing of data is going on to make this happen at the earliest. “We are working with both Bharat Biotech and WHO to make it happen. The data sharing is going on and we are very keen that this milestone is achieved as soon as possible,” Paul added.
Issue of indemnity
On the issue of indemnity being demanded by the foreign vaccine manufactures such as Pfizer and others, Paul said: “Indemnity is what they expect, and this has been the case they say all over the world.
“We have checked with other nations and, yes, indeed they have supplied vaccines only after such indemnity has been given. The government is negotiating with them and no decision has been taken so far.”
Regarding indemnity for local manufacturers, he said the government has a watch on this. Paul said that 17.2 crore of elderly population have received at least one dose of vaccine. Meanwhile, PM Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting to review the progress of India’s vaccination drive. Officials gave a detailed presentation on various aspects of the vaccination drive. The PM was briefed about the current availability of vaccines and the roadmap for ramping it up. The recovery rate in the country has improved to 93.1 per cent as daily infections have decreased by 68 per cent. Around 377 districts are reporting less than 5 per cent case positivity currently.
Death toll
India reported 1,32,364 cases with 2,713 deaths in the last 24 hours till Friday morning. Cumulatively, the country reported 2,85,74,350 infections, of which, active cases were 16,35,993, those who recovered stood at 2,65,97,655, and the death toll 3,40,702.
The government has administered a total of 22,41,09,448 vaccine doses so far, with 28,75,286 shots given in the last 24 hours. Also, more than 24 crore vaccine doses have been provided to the States/UTs, of which, the total consumption, including wastages, was 22,27,33,963 doses. More than 1.93 crore vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs.