Doctors suggest vaccination for all age groups above 18 years

With the fear of a second wave settling in the medical experts have suggested to open vaccination for all age groups. Dr Ravi Kumar, Consultant - Internal Medicine, Manipal Hospitals Whitefield said that with rising covid-19 cases and a low uptake of vaccines among priority groups, it is better to consider including all persons aged above 45 years in its immunization drive, as there is a need to protect maximum number of people from the disease by vaccinating them.

Dr Vishal Rao, Chief of Head & Neck Surgical oncology & Robotic surgery at HCG Cancer Centre said that with a total population of 64 million, with approximately 70% in the vaccine-eligible age group, Karnataka would need at least 90 million (9 crore) doses to achieve vaccine-induced herd immunity with the two-dose schedule of either mRNA or Adenovirus vaccines that have been approved by regulatory authorities in other countries.

"With the Government of India current vaccine procurement schedule, covering 60% of Karnataka's population might take another year, with optimistic estimates, or may spill into mid-or-late 2022.Thus it is prudent we open it to other groups," he suggested. Cautioning the policy makers, Rao reminded that India stands at around 20,000 new cases daily (7-day average).

"In July last year, when we began our fight against Covid, the average was roughly around the same number of 20,000 cases. However, by the time we reached the peak of 1,00,000 cases per day around September. We ended up facing an alarming situation made severe by our humongous population: more than a crore people were infected, and Covid fatalities were close to 1,60,000. Considering our learning from the first wave, it seems obvious we would find it difficult to pace up to evolving way pandemic peaks," he said.

Dr. Prasanna, president, PHANA stated that vaccination for all age groups above 18, especially with co-morbidities should be opened up. Dr. Sujay Prasad, Medical Director, Neuberg Anand Reference Laboratory opined that the government must consider narrowing the gap between the third and fourth vaccination phases of the nationwide mass immunization programme.

"The surge in the parts of the country is an indication that we will need to expedite our rate of vaccination. Through public and private hospitals the government is already doing its best to vaccinate people of priority groups after the frontline workers.

With good incoming response from the second priority group and improved receptivity towards vaccines, we feel that now the government must consider narrowing the gap between the third and fourth vaccination phases of the nationwide mass immunization programme. For meeting the requirement, the existing strength of the entire healthcare sector can be utilised," he said.

Dr. Harshitha Sridhar, Emergency and Critical Care, Vikram Hospital also stated that the vaccination should be opened to all age groups above 18 years of age to achieve larger number of vaccinated population and in turn enhance community immunity. "The global threat to combat COVID 19 illness has also been on vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. This has caused a substantial obstacle to achieve coverage and community immunity," he said.