Vaccination picks up in March, but second dose takers are missing

Three weeks have passed since second dose inoculation began. However, in 22 days since it started, some 1.4 million potential beneficiaries who took the first dose have not taken the second

Since India began the second phase of Covid-19 vaccination in March, citizens above 60 are queuing up at government-run vaccination centres and private hospitals. Since the first phase of vaccination that started on  January 17, till the end of February, healthcare workers (HCWs) and frontline workers (FLWs such as police and teachers) were inoculated.

Business Standard analysed the vaccination data maintained by covid19india.org, the independent—and only—group that publishes daily data on the Covid-19 epidemic in India based on press releases by central and state government agencies.

As the second phase began, there has been a clear jump in daily rate of vaccine administration. Jabs given in seven days preceding a particular day are rising fast. More than a million Indians are being vaccinated per day, and jabs injected touched 1.3 million on March 6 and 7.

But there seems to be a bit of concern in terms of the second dose, which has to be taken 28 days after taking the first dose. Three weeks have passed since the second dose inoculation began. However, in the 22 days since it started, as many as 1.4 million potential beneficiaries who took the first dose have not taken the second injection.

The gap between the ideal number of second dose takers and the actual people who took the second shot is actually increasing.

After being the leading vaccine takers in the first week of the first phase, women have fallen behind men in daily inoculation, and the trend has continued in the second phase. The number of male beneficiaries exceed female beneficiaries by more than 1.5 million as on March 7. As many as 1700 transgender individuals got the jabs to date.

Finally, the domestically researched and developed vaccine Covaxin, by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, has been administered to a very minute proportion of beneficiaries. The vaccine developed by Astrazeneca and Oxford University, manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India, has single-handedly inoculated 14 million Indians to date.