Covid-19: No plan to vaccinate entire population, say Indian health officials

Indian health officials have said there was never any talk of vaccinating the country's entire 1.3 billion population with Covid-19 vaccine and indicated that the purpose is to break the chain of virus transmission by inoculating a "critical mass of people."

"I just want to make this clear that the government has never spoken about vaccinating the entire country. It's important that we discuss such scientific issues, based on factual information only and then analyse it," our New Delhi correspondent quoted Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan as saying during a virtual media interaction.

Responding to a question at the briefing last evening, Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Balram Bhargava said the purpose of the Covid vaccine drive would be to break the chain of viral transmission.

The Indian government plans to vaccinate about 30 crore people, including health workers, other frontline Covid warriors, people above the age of 65 and persons with comorbidities in about six months once the vaccine is available.

The ICMR DG said the role of masks would continue to be important even after the vaccination.

"Because we are starting with a small group of population at a time, masks will be protective and continue to be used so as to help in breaking the chain of viral transmission," Bhargava said.

There are three vaccines which are in advanced state of trials in India, being conducted by three pharma majors -- Serum Institute of India, which is manufacturing Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Zydus Cadila, which is making DNA-based vaccine and Bharat Biotech which is producing India's only indigenous Covid-19 vaccine.

Bhushan and Bhargava said no decision has yet been taken whether to vaccinate those who have recovered from Covid-19 and have developed antibodies.