Covid vaccination programme on the right track

We appreciate the government for inoculating over half of our population—over seven crore people—with the first dose and over five crore people with the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine till now. The government has also set a target to inoculate all eligible persons with a double dose by June and with a booster dose by the end of this year. It has already started vaccinating children above 12 as well as the booster dose campaign on a limited scale. Moreover, the government's plan to set up a vaccine plant by this year to produce our own vaccines also seems very promising.

So far, the progress the government has made in vaccinating the population is quite good given the various challenges it had to face in procuring vaccines, maintaining the cold chain, ensuring a smooth supply as well as managing a digital system through which people have to register for the vaccines.

One of the major reasons for our progress in vaccination is that we have a strong Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI). Because of this, we could better manage the vaccination campaigns despite the fact that most of our public healthcare facilities are ill-equipped. The efforts our healthcare professionals have made in this regard is also remarkable.

Now that we have overcome the basic hurdles as the supply of vaccines has become smooth, we should not become complacent. There is still a lot more to do as a majority of our people have still not gotten the first dose of the vaccine. We should, in fact, expedite our vaccination programmes since a new Covid-19 variant Omicron—which has raised alarm bells across the world—has been detected in the country. The WHO has already warned the world about the looming danger of Omicron, saying that it may overwhelm the healthcare systems around the world. Already countries in Europe, China and the US have been facing a rapid surge in Omicron cases.

Against this backdrop, it is extremely necessary for our government to prepare and improve our public healthcare facilities to cope with any possible surge in Covid cases. However, for a country like ours with a weak healthcare system, it will be judicious to focus more on strengthening our vaccination drives because vaccination will curb hospitalisation and deaths.

As such, in order to ramp up our vaccination drives, the government needs to launch special drives to bring more people under its coverage. Attention needs to be given to vaccinate the rural people as they have limited access to online registration. At the same time, vaccinating more children should be given a priority this time around since the new variant is found to have harmful effects on children.

We hope the government will be successful in fulfilling its target of vaccinating all people by the end of this year through ensuring a smooth supply of the vaccines. Setting up a vaccine plant in the country will further strengthen our vaccination drive.