Covid-19 vaccination pace deliberately kept low, explains ICMR doctor One-third of those who have already contracted Covid-19 do not develop antibodies required, Dr NK Arora explained.
Taking questions from social media users, Indian Council of Medical Research’s Dr NK Arora on Friday clarified several issues regarding Covid-19 vaccination.
Union health ministry shared those video messages on its official Twitter handle.
On the pace of vaccination, the National Task Force member said that the pace, which is fastest in the world, has been kept low as the ministry wanted to take stock of the hiccups and gradually iron them out.
“India has the capacity of immunising five to eight million people per day.
We have inoculated over 17 crore children in a week several times a year during our pulse polio drive.
But the pace has deliberately been kept low,” he said. On the need of vaccination for those who have already had Covid-19, he said, “It has been found out in India that 1/3 of those who have contracted Covid-19 do not develop antibodies required.
And even if one does, no one knows how long those antibodies are going to protect you,” Dr Arora said.
Second Covid-19 vaccine shot to be administered from Feb 13 Talking about ‘herd immunity’ in Delhi, he said,
“Nothing can be said with certainty on herd immunity and so this can’t be an excuse to skip vaccination.”
Allaying fears over Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, which does not yet have the efficacy data, Dr Arora said, “Drug regulators across the world have this provision to grant emergency use authorisation to vaccines which have their phase one and phase 2 data.
No corners have been cut in giving the authorisation. In fact, it has been found that Covaxin develops more immunity than many other vaccines.”
Answering questions on whether people suffering from co-morbidity issues should take the vaccines, Dr Arora said,
“People with co-morbidity issues should take the vaccine as they are at a higher risk of contracting Covid-19. But if you have some doubts, one can consult a doctor before getting the dose.”
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