NEW DELHI (INDIA) – India has been witnessing a few hassles to convince its health and front-line workers to take a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine, which was controversially given approval without late-stage efficacy data, government data showed on Thursday, a few days before a wider roll-out.
A lack of confidence in a homegrown vaccine country could hamper India’s target of vaccinating 300 million of its 1.35 billion people by August.
India has inoculated more than 10.5 million health and front-line workers since kickstarting its immunisation campaign on January 16.
However, only 1.2 million, or about 11%, of them have taken COVAXIN, which is the locally developed vaccine from Bharat Biotech, while rest of the 9.4 million have used the vaccine, which has license from AstraZeneca, as per the government’s Co-Win online platform, which follows the vaccination drive.
India’s federal government has so far placed an order of 10 million doses of COVAXIN and 21 million doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca shot, of which the government says it has received at least 5.5 million COVAXIN doses.
“It’s all because of the initial discussion about how (COVAXIN) was only an experimental vaccine, how it had not completed the Phase-3 trial,” said Dr Subhash Salunkhe, who advises the Maharashtra state government on vaccine strategy.
“These things created doubts in the minds of people, resulting in lesser acceptance. The availability is not a concern at this juncture.”
However, India’s Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Tuesday said the reason for lower uptake of COVAXIN was due to Bharat Biotech’s limited production capacity compared to that of the Serum Institute of India, which is the world’s biggest vaccine producer, making the AstraZeneca shot for low- and medium-income countries.
“We have found that in proportion to the quantity of vaccine available with us, (COVAXIN’s) off-take is fairly satisfactory,” told a news conference.
His ministry did not respond to a request seeking comment on the latest figures, according to which only about 12% of the ordered doses had been administered.
Bharat Biotech has said data on efficacy from the trial on nearly 26,000 volunteers will be declared soon. The company, along with India’s drug regulator, says the vaccine is safe and effective, which is based on early and intermediate studies.
The government is trying to accelerate vaccinations as cases have surged, mainly in the state of Maharashtra in the west and the southern state of Kerala.
Health ministry data showed on Thursday that India reported 16,738 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, marking the highest daily jump in a month, raising the total to 11.05 million.
More than half of the new cases were in Maharashtra, home to its financial capital Mumbai, reporting a record high of 8,807 cases on Wednesday.
Deaths across the country rose by 138, also the highest in a month, taking the total to 156,705.