India’s Massive Vaccination Campaign Boosted by Modi Receiving Shot

Source: Prime Minister of India Narendra

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After a slow start, India’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign – one of the largest in the world – nearly quadrupled after the country opened it until more people and received crucial public approval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vaccination.

Nearly 21 million shots have been taken managed so far in India, up from 5.4 million a month ago, according to data collected as of Sunday by Bloomberg and Johns Hopkins University. The number of doses per 100 people has also increased from 0.41 to 1.56. A record 1.6 million Indians received a Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday, data shows.

After an initially lukewarm response – in part due to the controversial approval of a homegrown vaccine before it completed clinical trials – the urge to vaccinate accelerated after Modi gave the injection on March 1, urging others to follow suit. India has also opened the rollout to all citizens over 60 and those 45 and older with co-morbidities, either free from a state center or for a fee of a whopping 250 rupees ($ 3.40) in private hospitals.

Some of the largest companies operating in the country have said they will cover the costs of vaccination for their employees and families, including Accenture Plc, Infosys Ltd. and Reliance Industries Ltd., owned by Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. “With your support, we will soon be able to put this pandemic behind us,” said Nita Ambani, director at Reliance and wife of Mukesh. said in a letter to employees seen by Bloomberg.

“A large number of people are coming,” Azad Moopen, the president of the Dubai-based Aster DM healthcare Ltd., which operates 13 private hospitals in India, said in an interview Friday. But there is still a “huge gap” that needs to be bridged for India to meet its vaccination goals.

Confidence boost

Together with AstraZeneca Plc’s shot, India has also authorized the use of Covaxin, a vaccine developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Ltd., which initially caused hesitation among medical and frontline workers. It was approved in early January before it completed the final stages of human testing.

Bharat Biotech announced earlier this month that after a second dose, Covaxin showed strong efficacy of 81% in people with no prior infection. Modi was also injected with the indigenously developed Covaxin – a step that may have helped build confidence.

India will need all these winds to reach its goal of vaccinating about a quarter of its population by August. The momentum of vaccination has been maintained not always easy, as shown by the Hong Kong experience. Even if demand increases, supply shortages can arise in India unless bottlenecks are quickly removed.