Past one week’s COVID picture of the country carried a strong hint that the situation is not comfortable. Wednesday’s figures which show that nearly 36000 new cases have been added and there is a surge of 150% in as many as 70 districts have confirmed it. At this backdrop there is now an added concern which is wastage of vaccine, the national average of which is 6.5% and in some states, as high as nearly 18% and 12%. Thankfully, Arunachal Pradesh has remained out of the list of 15 most-wasteful states as per Health Ministry’s data. There is no way left for these states but to launch an immediate rectification and the Centre must think again on the idea of opening the vaccination for all sections of people, which Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has on Thursday urged.
While sharing the COVID vaccination figures as per which 3.58 crore have been inoculated till March 15, the Health Ministry has claimed that India’s vaccination speed is currently the world’s fastest, ahead of even the US and many other countries. In the immediate context this might be true, but it should be kept in mind that India’s task is tougher only due to the fact that its population is multiple times higher than these countries. Therefore, any wastage of the precious doses might not only trigger scarcity but also delay the overall vaccination process, more than 90% of which is still undone. Even if the data on specific cause(s) of the wastage hasn’t arrived on public domain, WHO has defined it as close and open vial wastage. Closed vial wastage results due to improper cold chain and inventory management and the other occurs when health workers are compelled to discard unused doses from multi-dose vials. The Health Ministry and states in tandem must find out what’s going wrong and initiate measures to counter. However, various health experts are unanimous that reluctance on the part of a section of people in the ongoing 2nd phase and even by a segment of health and frontline Covid workers in the 1st phase to take shots has been a major cause of wastage. It needs mentioning that Covid vaccine normally has a shelf of a maximum of 6 months and apathy in getting inoculated will lead to sure wastage. Arunachal too has been facing the problem of poor turnout in many districts and it’s a new challenge for the DAs to convince the targeted beneficiaries. Full-scale vaccination efforts must continue unabated since 2020’s experiences show that it takes no time for the virus to spread in places that seemed unthinkable at one point of time.
Making the country COVID-free will be impossible if vaccination wastage is not contained and people’s apathy continues. 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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