NEW DELHI - Doctors and experts say the government needs to improve its communication on drug safety amid concerns over the speedy approvals of vaccines, as well as glitches in a government app which resulted in only 64 per cent of intended recipients on the first two days of the nation s vaccine roll-out getting their shots.
The CoWIN app is being used by the government to alert recipients when it is their turn to get a shot.
India, which started vaccinations last Saturday (Jan 16), has approved two vaccines for emergency use: Covishield, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and Covaxin, developed by local firm Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) - National Institute of Virology (NIV).
Emerging from Holy Family hospital in New Delhi, Ram Verma, a sanitation worker, breathed a deep sigh of relief. As one of the first in India to receive the coronavirus vaccine on Saturday – marking the start of the world’s largest vaccination programmes – he had been feeling a little jittery. “I must admit I was nervous. A lot of us were. I thought I might faint or have side effects. After all, it is something totally new. But I’m fine. There.
Published January 16, 2021, 7:30 AM
Led by the United States, the world is about to hit a frightening COVID19 benchmark, with 2 million people dead and few expectations for the numbers to start dropping any time soon.
Maryland Cremation Services transporter Reggie Elliott brings the remains of a Covid-19 victim to his van from the hospital’s morgue in Baltimore, Maryland on December 24, 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
(Photo by Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP / MANILA BULLETIN)
“You want to get to the point first where the virus can’t outrace you,” said Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health and co-director of the Global Health Justice Partnership.