‘Shots limited, easing eligibility criteria now will be dangerous’

NEW DELHI: India is operating amid a raging pandemic with finite supplies of vaccines and the primary role of vaccination is to reduce deaths and hospitalisation and opening the shots for the general population will be a gamble with lives, says Dr N K Arora, member of the National Committee on Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI).

Current estimates show that till July-August, there will be just sufficient vaccines for the 40-crore people above the age of 45 years in the country, accounting for about a third of the population.

“This means, every jab that goes to a younger adult will be at the expense of an older adult who is at a higher risk of severe disease and death. With finite resources, focusing on the goal to save lives and reduce hospitalisations is absolutely essential. Mixing up goals of vaccination at this time could mean gambling with lives... we cannot afford infinite experimentation, and definitely not infinite errors,” Dr Arora, who also heads Operations Research Group at the Indian Council of Medical Research, said.


“If we immunise younger adults at present, our main goal becomes to relieve that age group of symptomatic infection, which is what the current vaccines are known to be doing. But a large share of the population in that age group is fortunately, already asymptomatic or shows mild symptoms when infected,” he said.

Arora countered the argument that youths being mobile could significantly spread infection. “Prioritising them for vaccination based on that assumption will be giving into another gamble — mainly because vaccines are not yet known to interrupt chain of transmission,” he said.