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On guard, to keep waves at bay: No rush to stockpile Covid vaccines
The virus may have lost its 'bite', but is still highly transmissible, as experts point out
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Just as life without masks and social distancing was increasingly becoming a new normal, Covid-19 has made a comeback. Even if the impact is not severe, doctors, health experts and hospital administrations have stepped up their act on the next steps.
The numbers explain why the situation is not alarming, but the sudden surge in patients infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus is worrisome. India is adding 250-350 fresh Covid-19 cases daily. Compare this with the numbers in early May 2021, when infections were at their peak. India was reporting an average of around 400,000 daily cases and close to 5000
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Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Pandemic worsened childhood vaccination rates globally; India, 7 other nations had over half of unvaccinated kids in 2023: study
While there has been unprecedented progress in vaccinating children against life-threatening diseases since the World Health Organization (WHO) established the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in 1974, the last two decades have also been marked by stagnating childhood vaccination rates and a wide variation in vaccine coverage. These challenges have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving millions of children vulnerable to preventable diseases and death, according to a major new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study Vaccine Coverage Collaborators, published in The Lancet. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges with global coverage rates of the original EPI-recommended vaccines declining sharply beginning in 2020—resulting in an estimated 15.6 million children missing the full three doses of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine or a measles vaccine between 2020 and 2023, as well as 15.9 million children not receiving any polio vaccine, and 9.18 million missing out on the tuberculosis vaccine. The study estimates that disruptions to immunisation services during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in around 12.8 million additional unvaccinated zero-dose children globally during the four pandemic years (2020-2023). Wide discrepancies remain, with markedly lower coverage and higher rates of under and unvaccinated children in low- and middle-income countries. In 2023, more than half of the world's 15.7 million unvaccinated children were living in just eight countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa (53%) and South Asia (13%)—Nigeria (2.48 million), India (1.44 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, 882,000), Ethiopia (782,000), Somalia (710,000), Sudan (627,000), Indonesia (538,000), and Brazil (452,000). 'The challenge now is how to improve vaccine delivery and uptake in areas of low coverage,' said lead author Dr Emily Haeuser in the report. 'The diversity of challenges and barriers to immunisation vary widely between countries and within communities, with rising numbers of displaced people and growing disparities due to armed conflict, political volatility, economic uncertainty, climate crises, and vaccine misinformation and hesitancy, underscoring the need for new, tailored solutions,' she added. The success of the past 50 years is partly the result of a doubling of global coverage for the original vaccines against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (first dose 49% to 89%; and all three doses 40% to 81%), measles (37% to 83%), polio (42% to 80%), and tuberculosis (38% to 83%) between 1980 and 2023. Additionally, there has been a 75% drop in the number of unvaccinated zero-dose children worldwide from 58.8 million in 1980 to 14.7 million in 2019, as well as the introduction and scale-up of critical new lifesaving vaccines against pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, and a second dose of the measles vaccine. The analysis indicates that accelerated progress will be necessary to achieve the 2030 target of halving the number of zero-dose children compared to 2019 levels, with only 18 of 204 countries and territories estimated to have already met this target as of 2023. Two-thirds (65%) of the zero-dose children that need to be reached by vaccination between 2023 and 2030 live in sub-Saharan Africa (4.28 million) and South Asia (1.33 million). To increase vaccine acceptance and uptake, the authors call for more concerted efforts to tackle vaccine misinformation and hesitancy. As Dr. Haeuser explained, 'Successful vaccination programmes are built on understanding and responding to people's beliefs, concerns, and expectations. Vaccination services must prioritise trust-building, engage community leaders, and tailor interventions with more culturally appropriate local strategies to improve vaccine confidence and uptake.' Anuradha Mascarenhas is a journalist with The Indian Express and is based in Pune. A senior editor, Anuradha writes on health, research developments in the field of science and environment and takes keen interest in covering women's issues. With a career spanning over 25 years, Anuradha has also led teams and often coordinated the edition. ... Read More
Hindustan Times
2 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Health Talk: India ranks 2nd in unvaccinated kids but comparison somewhat flawed
India has had the most number of unvaccinated children— 1.4 million— after Nigeria (2.5million), of the 15.7 million unvaccinated children globally in 2023, data published in The Lancet on Tuesday said. The world has made unprecedented progress in vaccinating children against life-threatening disease since WHO established the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in 1974 (HT Photo/ Representative photo) According to the paper, at least half of the world's 15.7 million unvaccinated children in the same year were living in just eight countries, with 53% in sub-Saharan Africa and 13% in south Asia. The Democratic Republic of Congo (882,000), Ethiopia (782,000), Somalia (710,000), Sudan (627,000), Indonesia (538,000), and Brazil (452,000) were the other countries with high unvaccinated children load globally. In the south Asian region, the countries with the highest number of zero-dose children in 2023 after India were Pakistan (419,000), Nepal (11,000), and Bangladesh (6,000). The paper also has new projections through 2030 on global childhood vaccine coverage that shows that the world will fail to meet the World Health Organisation's (WHO) immunisation goals unless substantial improvements are made in the next five years. 'The world has made unprecedented progress in vaccinating children against life-threatening disease since WHO established the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) in 1974. Despite the progress of the past 50 years, the last two decades have also been marked by stagnating childhood vaccination rates and wide variation in vaccine coverage. These challenges have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving millions of children vulnerable to preventable diseases and death…,' read the paper. Also Read: Health Talk | Need for quick vaccine development to save lives While India has been ranked as the country with the second highest number of zero-dose children, the comparison is somewhat flawed. As the ministry of health and family welfare, government of India, has been maintaining that India's vaccination coverage among children has been growing steadily but owing to the country's large population, their comparison with most other countries cannot be without error. Last year, officials aware of the matter in the government, responded to vaccination coverage estimates released by WHO and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) that showed at 1.6 million India had the second highest zero-dose children in the world after Nigeria with 2.1 million unvaccinated children. The officials said that the estimates were flawed as the country's base population had not been taken into consideration while calculating the numbers and if the population had been considered then the percentage would be much less. Also Read: Health Talk | The crucial role of effective vaccine coverage in tackling antimicrobial resistance It is a valid argument as any numbers coming from India— without considering its baseline population— would seem through the roof. The estimation has to grow more nuanced.
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First Post
7 hours ago
- First Post
No clear answer on Covid-19 origin, WHO experts conclude after three-year-long probe
After more than three years of work, WHO's expert group was unable to get the necessary data to evaluate whether or not Covid-19 was the result of a lab accident read more An expert group charged by the World Health Organization to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic started released its final report Friday, reaching an unsatisfying conclusion: Scientists still aren't sure how the worst health emergency in a century began. At a press briefing on Friday, Marietjie Venter, the group's chair, said that most scientific data supports the hypothesis that the new coronavirus jumped to humans from animals. That was also the conclusion drawn by the first WHO expert group that investigated the pandemic's origins in 2021, when scientists concluded the virus likely spread from bats to humans, via another intermediary animal. At the time, WHO said a lab leak was 'extremely unlikely.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Venter said that after more than three years of work, WHO's expert group was unable to get the necessary data to evaluate whether or not COVID-19 was the result of a lab accident, despite repeated requests for hundreds of genetic sequences and more detailed biosecurity information that were made to the Chinese government. 'Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded,' she said. 'It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science.' She said that the 27-member group did not reach a consensus; one member resigned earlier this week and three others asked for their names to be removed from the report. Venter said there was no evidence to prove that COVID-19 had been manipulated in a lab, nor was there any indication that the virus had been spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China. 'Until more scientific data becomes available, the origins of how SARS-CoV-2 entered human populations will remain inconclusive,' Venter said, referring to the scientific name for the COVID-19 virus. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was a 'moral imperative' to determine how COVID began, noting that the virus killed at least 20 million people, wiped at least $10 trillion from the global economy and upended the lives of billions. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Last year, the AP found that the Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus' origins in the first weeks of the outbreak in 2020 and that WHO itself may have missed early opportunities to investigate how COVID-19 began. U.S. President Donald Trump has long blamed the emergence of the coronavirus on a laboratory accident in China, while a U.S. intelligence analysis found there was insufficient evidence to prove the theory. Chinese officials have repeatedly dismissed the idea that the pandemic could have started in a lab, saying that the search for its origins should be conducted in other countries. Last September, researchers zeroed in on a short list of animals they think might have spread COVID-19 to humans, including racoon dogs, civet cats and bamboo rats.
