India Coronavirus Dispatch: Does the entire population need vaccination?

Those with disabilities had trouble accessing healthcare amid the pandemic, insight into whether we should inoculate the entire population, and more-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

Does it make sense to vaccinate India’s entire population?

Now that the United Kingdom will begin rolling out Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, Indians are wondering about their chances of getting one, too. But with that fervent hope comes the question: do all Indians even need the coronavirus vaccine?

At the moment, the Indian government is of the opinion that vaccination against the deadly pandemic may be needed only to the extent of “breaking the chain”. If we are able to vaccinate a critical mass of people and break virus transmission, then we may not have to vaccinate the entire population,” Balram Bhargava, director general of India’s nodal medical body Indian Council of Medical Research, said on December 1. Read more here
 

Mumbai’s fever clinics, Gujarat's mobile vans among those with best Covid practices — NITI Aayog

The fever clinics in Dharavi that helped control Covid-19 in Asia’s largest slum, mobile vans in Gujarat that dispensed non-Covid essential health services during the pandemic, and Andhra Pradesh’s contact-tracing app that used mobile tower locations to trace the path taken by a positive patient have found a place in a compendium of the best Covid-19 practices, put together by NITI Ayog. 

Fragments of the Agra and Bhilwara models that were touted as ideal at the start of the pandemic, before the former emerged as a hotspot, too appear in the document titled Mitigation and Management of COVID19 — Practices from Indian States and Union Territories. Read more here

42.5% Indians with disabilities faced problems accessing healthcare in lockdown, finds study

The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown period have severely impacted mental health, education, livelihoods and social participation of persons with disabilities (PWD), a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Hyderabad, has found.

At least two out of every five persons with disabilities (42.5 per cent) reported difficulty in accessing routine healthcare and 28 per cent had to delay their medical appointments during the lockdown period. The study also found that 58 per cent PWDs with pre-existing health conditions faced difficulty in accessing routine medical care. Read more here

India’s emergency use guidelines allow ‘immediate’ approval of vaccine

With Pfizer/BioNTech’s m-RNA vaccine having been approved in the United Kingdom and being readied for about 80,000 of the country’s most vulnerable people, India’s own vaccines could be available “almost immediately” for public use after phase-3 trials were completed and the drug regulator was convinced of a vaccine’s potential efficacy, according to experts.

Emergency use authorisation (EUA) procedure in India is similar to that in the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, said Ram Vishwakarma of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR-IIIM). He is currently involved in testing several novel and re-purposed drugs for Covid-19. Read more here 

The priority groups that are likely to receive the Covid-19 vaccine first

The Ministry of Health in consultation with states is actively working to prioritise the groups that should receive the COVID-19 vaccine first. Priority population is that section of people who are at a higher risk of contracting the virus.

Many discussions have been happening at different forums as to who should be given priority so that the country can reduce fatalities due to coronavirus. Here are the people who fall under the priority list and will be inoculated first. Read more here 

What makes diabetes a bad comorbidity for Covid-19?

A recent study conducted by King's College, London, found that patients who had a condition called 'diabetic retinopathy' faced a higher risk for Covid hospitalization, and five times more likely to be administrated ventilator support. Retinopathy, which is marked by damage to the blood vessels around the eyes is a common complication with Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes. In many cases, blood vessel damage can also lead to organ damage in other parts of the body. It's only now, that doctors are realizing, what other grave damage could be resultant from the same- one of them being severe Covid-19 and prolonged recovery.

From managing blood sugar flare-ups to preventing organ damage, what makes diabetes such a bad comorbidity for COVID-19? Read more here