‘India’s vaccination drive saved over 3.4 million lives’

New Delhi: Buoyed over the success of robust COVID-19 vaccination drive, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has on Friday said that the Covid vaccination campaign has yielded a positive economic impact as India was able to save more than 3.4 million lives by undertaking a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign at an unprecedented scale.

While releasing a working paper by Stanford University, Mandaviya said, “The Covid vaccination campaign also yielded a positive economic impact by preventing a loss of USD $ 18.3 billion. Much before COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in January 2020, processes and structures to focus dedicatedly on various facets of the pandemic management were put in place.” “India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modiji adopted a ‘Whole of Government’ and ‘Whole of Society’ approach in a proactive, preemptive and graded manner, thus adopting a holistic response strategy for effective management of COVID-19,” he said.

Hailing the decision of early lockdown by the prime minister as a significant turning point, Mandaviya said, “It enabled the government to leverage community response in its five-pronged strategy namely Test, Track, Treat, Vaccination, Adherence for implementing Covid Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) and delivering a rapid and robust institutional response to combat COVID-19.”

“The government focused on augmenting health infrastructure in terms of Covid-related beds, drugs, logistics i.e., N-95 masks, PPE kits and medical oxygen, simultaneously up-skilling human resources though Centres of Excellences and deploying digital solutions such as eSanjeevani Telemedicine service, Aarogya Setu, COVID-19 India Portal etc,” the minister added.

The health minister further stated that India launched the world’s biggest vaccination drive, garnering coverage of 97 per cent first dosage and 90 per cent of the second dosage, administering 2.2 billion dosages in all for eligible beneficiaries.

The paper discusses the role of containment as a measure to prevent the spread of the virus. It highlights that, as against the top-down approach, a bottom-up approach was critical in containing the virus.

Moreover, the report remarkably notes that robust measures at the ground level, like contact tracing, mass testing, home quarantine, distribution of essential medical equipment, revamping healthcare infrastructure and constant coordination among stakeholders at the centre, state and district levels not only helped contain the spread of the virus but also in augmenting the health infrastructure.

The report further elaborated that three cornerstones of India’s strategy — containment, relief package and vaccine administration – played a key role in effective COVID-19 management as these three measures were critical in saving lives and ensuring economic activity by containing the spread of COVID-19, sustaining livelihoods and developing immunity against the virus.

The working paper further notes that India was able to save more than 3.4 million lives by undertaking the nationwide vaccination campaign at an unprecedented scale.