Eighteen days after India’s vaccination campaign, the daily numbers are experiencing a dip again. Vaccination estimates have fallen from 5.7 lakh to 1.8 lakh per day in the last week. The number of average beneficiaries per site has also decreased from 57 to 49 in the last few days.
On January 28, the average number of recipients per site was 56, while the total number of vaccinations was 5.7 lakh (5,72,074).
On 31 January, the average number of recipients per location was 57-the total number of vaccinations was 14,509.
On February 2, the total number of beneficiaries per site was 49, down from 54 on February 1. The total number of vaccinations was above 1.8 lakh (1.88.762)-down from 1.9 lakh on Monday (1,91,313).
The Ministry of Health of the Union announced on Wednesday that India is the fastest country to cross the mark of 4 million vaccinations. The goal was reached in 18 days. But public health experts say India would have to do a lot more to reach its goal.
Dr Dileep Mavalankar, Director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, said: “If we have to vaccinate 60 Crore doses, which is 30 Crore people in the next six months, we will have to raise the rate of vaccination very quickly. The average rate will have to be 33 Lakh doses per day. More and more vaccination centres need to be opened by the government, making more volunteers willing to obtain vaccinations.
On 30 January, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan stated that there is “huge scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per session” and asked them to increase the number of vaccination sites.
Shortly thereafter, Gujarat expanded its vaccination sites from 161 to 510.
Delhi expanded its vaccination sites from 81 to 183 and will now be vaccinated six days a week instead of 4.
Vaccination of frontline staff has also begun as planned for the first week of February. States like Gujarat, West Bengal and Punjab have already begun, and the rest will start at the end of this week.
Yet government officials admit that the fall in numbers is mainly due to vaccine hesitancy, and the increase seen earlier was due to the implementation of walking-in-vaccination.
A senior doctor who did not wish to give his name said, “It is also important for officials who manage the vaccination sites to be more vigilant. The slotted individuals should be called up a day in advance. If those people are not planning to come, then call up the second list of people. The team at the vaccination site is therefore completely occupied and all resources are used effectively.”
