India: anti-Covid vaccination extended to over 45s
A man puts the finishing touches to graffiti depicting a Covid-19 vaccine on January 2, 2021 in Calcutta, India.
REUTERS - RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
India is currently facing the start of a virulent second wave of Covid-19 contamination, certainly caused by the arrival of the English variant.
With nearly 50,000 cases per day, it is the third country with the most important daily contamination.
The authorities will therefore extend the vaccination to open it to people over 45 and accelerate a fairly slow inoculation so far.
But many fear that this is not enough.
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From our correspondent in India
,
Sébastien Farcis
From April 1, more than 300 million Indians over the age of 45 will have the right to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
But for that, the system has not changed: they will have to register on a mobile application connected to the Internet, which is an aberration in a country where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.
Instead, Hemant Shewade, a specialist in community medicine at an international institution, asks that we use the vaccination network that already exists.
"
We have an established process that allows for example to vaccinate 150 million people against polio in just three days. This system works without internet, without private hospitals and also allows to report the adverse effects of the vaccine,
" he said
.
You just have to adapt this system for the needs of the Covid-19 vaccination.
So it doesn't make sense that we don't do it.
Instead, the current vaccination mainly affects urban populations, mostly using private hospitals, which excludes the poorest.
"
India has only vaccinated 3% of its major population so far.
At this rate, it will take more than two years to give two doses to all adults.
► To read also: Covid-19: from the Philippines to India, the good deals of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V in Asia
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