No Shortage Of Vaccine In Country, Confident To Inoculate Whole Population By Dec 2021: ICMR DG Bhargava
Mumbai: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava on Tuesday expressed confidence that India’s entire population will be vaccinated by December 2021.
Briefing the press on updates related to COVID and vaccination in the country, Bhargava stressed that the COVID positivity rate should be less than 5 per cent for a week and 70 per cent in districts to lift restrictions. More than one per cent of the vulnerable population should be vaccinated.
“We need to be patient. We have administered nearly as many vaccine doses as the United States. There is no shortage of vaccines. By mid-July or August, we will have enough doses to vaccinate 1 crore people per day. We are confident of vaccinating the whole population by December,” he said.
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“We have to find a mechanism where we have to ease the containment or lockdown and that has to be done very gradually and slowly. Opening up revolves around three pillars- Positivity rate in the district need to be less than 5 per cent for seven-day average, vulnerable individuals that are aged more than 60 and people aged more than 45 with comorbidity should be vaccinated up to 70 per cent and community ownership of COVID appropriate behaviour,” Dr Bhargava added.
Meanwhile, the centre has recently ruled out any “significant adverse effects” if the second dose of a different COVID-19 vaccine is administered while saying that reaching a firm opinion on this will need “more scrutiny and understanding”.
Also Read: Single-Shot Covishield & Mixing Doses Of 2 Vaccines Not Approved Yet: Govt
The clarification came after 20 people in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar district, who were given Covishield in the first dose, were mistakenly given Covaxin.
As per the existing guidelines, both doses administered to beneficiaries should be of the same vaccine.
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