Covid vaccination: No clarity on elderly with co-morbidities

Hyderabad: Covid immunisation drive is set to commence shortly in wake of Centre's clearance to two vaccines, however, there is no clarity on inoculation of people above 50 years of age with co-morbidities.

If getting the data of the number of vaccine recipients in this category is a big task considering the very huge population, the other challenge is how to go about giving vaccine jab since there are several diseases in the co-morbidities list which have to be prioritised in order and accordingly vaccination has to be done.

The task force committee appointed to frame guidelines for inoculation has hinted that even in people with the same comorbidity they will look to give the vaccine to the person whose nature of the disease is of a more serious condition. For example, if two persons have diabetes with one of them using insulin injections and the other person not yet, then preference would be given to inoculate diabetic using insulin to control blood sugar levels.

However, the other thing to be looked into is various diseases that fall in the co-morbidities category including diabetes, hypertension, renal ailments, a different type of cancers etc.

Initially, people suffering from diabetes, hypertension and renal ailments could be given a vaccine jab and among them also as per the seriousness of their co-morbidity condition. People suffering from Cancer or HIV Virus have very low immunity and its better this emergency use could be tried on them after the initial phase as there are chances of adverse complications in them due to low immunity level.

Also, coming to the identification of the number of recipients that fall in 50 and above category, the health officials hinted at utilizing the data of the election commission from the previous general elections.

Senior doctors from the State are suggesting the Centre focus on these exercises at the earliest as the vaccine self-registration process will gain momentum in the coming days.