Vaccine juggernaut rolls into 2021, but not without challenges
December 31, 2020
Supply shortage, lack of preparedness, new virulent strain can throw up issues
“Vaccines offer great hope to turn the tide of the pandemic,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
, Director General of the World Health Organization in his new year message.
But there’s also caution. The global risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2 remains, he said, until all those at risk are immunised, not just those that can afford the vaccines. And the WHO-supported COVAX facility (for equitable vaccine distribution) “urgently” needs $4 billion, he said, to buy vaccines for low-income and lower-middle income countries.
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NEW DELHI - India is seeing a six-month low of daily Covid-19 cases even as multiple Indian states have imposed restrictions to ensure New Year celebrations will not erode these gains.
India, the world s second worst-hit country by the pandemic after the US, with over 10.2 million cases, has seen daily cases hovering at around 20,000, in stark contrast to a high of 97,000 cases in mid-September.
Active cases have fallen to below 270,000 for the first time in six months.
The downward trend in the world s second most populous country comes in spite of Covid fatigue within the population, with not all following social distancing norms or wearing masks.
Experts ponder if countries like India will be able to buy, distribute vaccines
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The National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on Tuesday hosted a virtual discussion titled ‘The Challenge of Vaccinating a Billion Indians: How to meet it?’ to deliberate some of these issues.
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Renu Swarup said, “There has been no compromise on any step that s required to ensure the safety, the efficacy, the immunogenicity response that this vaccine will bring in.”
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New Delhi: As vaccines to combat Covid-19 roll out, experts are pondering if they will be available equitably and whether large countries like India would be able to buy, distribute and deliver them in sufficient quantities.
Factors such as a younger population, early lockdown and some level of general immunity may have helped India and other South Asian countries keep the Covid-19 mortality rate down compared to other nations, says a study.
Bengaluru-based epidemiologist Dr Giridhara R Babu and researchers from the Philippines and the US conducted the study, which was recently published in the journal Science Direct.
The South Asian region comprises eight countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and is home to one-fifth of the world’s population. It accounts for 21 per cent of the reported Covid-19 cases in the world and 11 per cent of the deaths. Despite low level of pandemic preparedness, the countries have done well in mounting an appropriate response, the study notes.