A group of public health experts, including doctors from AIIMS and members of the National Task Force on Covid-19, have said that indiscriminate and incomplete mass vaccination can trigger the emergence of mutant strains. The panel has also recommended that people who have had coronavirus infection should not be vaccinated.
In their latest report, experts from the Indian Public Health Association (IPHA), the Indian Association for Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM) and the Indian Association of Epidemiologists (IAE) said the vulnerable and at risk are being vaccinated, rather than the entire population Vaccinate on a massive scale Vaccination in children, too, should be aimed for at present. Coronavirus updates on June 11th
What does the report say?
“The current situation of the pandemic in the country requires that we should refer to the logistical and epidemiological data to prioritize vaccinations rather than opening vaccinations to all ages at this time.
“Opening all fronts at the same time will drain human and other resources and would spread them too thinly to influence the population,” said the experts in the report presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
They stressed that vaccinating young adults and children is not backed by evidence and would not be cost-effective, saying that unscheduled vaccination can promote mutant strains.
“Bulky, arbitrary and incomplete vaccination can also trigger the emergence of mutant strains. Given the rapid transmission of infections in different parts of the country, mass vaccination of all adults is unlikely to catch the pace of natural infections among ours.” young population, “says the report.
People with a documented Covid-19 infection do not need to be vaccinated. These people can be vaccinated after there is evidence that a vaccine is beneficial after natural infection, the recommendations suggest.
See also: G-7 countries are expected to commit 1 billion vaccine doses to the world
“Vaccines should not be withheld or used indiscriminately”
Evidence-based flexibility in vaccination schedules may need to be considered for areas or populations experiencing an increase due to certain variants; for example a shortened interval for the second dose of Covishiled for areas with an increase due to the delta variant.
“The vaccine is a strong and powerful weapon against the novel coronavirus. And like all powerful weapons, it should not be withheld or used indiscriminately, but should be used strategically to get the maximum benefit cost-effectively, “they said.
While it makes perfect sense to vaccinate all adults, the reality is that the country is in the midst of an ongoing pandemic with limited vaccine availability, the report said.
In this scenario, the focus should be on reducing the number of deaths, most of which are in older age groups and those with comorbidities or obesity. Vaccinating young adults is not cost-effective given current restrictions, it said.
See also: Covaxin Offers Protection Against Beta, Delta Variants Of Covid-19, Claims Early Study
What was recommended?
The report suggested doing repeated real-time local sero surveys at the end of the second wave to map susceptibility at the district level, to guide vaccination strategy and long-term follow-up of the cohort of recovered Covid-19 patients to assess reinfection and severity document and result in order to provide an evidence base for the duration of immunity after natural infection.
Ongoing research into the effectiveness of vaccines in field conditions by observing cohorts of vaccinated and unvaccinated people at different ages should be a priority.
The experts said that the current wave was largely due to multiple variants, pointing out that India genomically sequenced less than 1 percent of its positive samples and also behind other countries to another crucial extent, the sequence per 1,000 cases lags with high incidence.
Achieving the goal of genomic sequencing of 5 percent positive samples currently seems challenging, but every effort should be made to achieve at least 3 percent, they recommended while establishing the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) of 10 national laboratories on time and addition of 17 more laboratories.
Molecular epidemiological studies need to be accelerated with INSACOG scientists, field epidemiologists and clinical specialists working in synergy to delineate the epidemiological characteristics of the variants, with particular attention to portability and mortality.
Genetic sequences need to be tracked to delineate virus transmission in both community and healthcare. It can detect outbreaks that would otherwise be overlooked using traditional methods, the experts pointed out.
They also recommended introducing the syndrome management approach on schedule after raising awareness among health workers and making the most of laboratory tests.
There is an acute shortage of test facilities for SARS-CoV-2 in rural and urban areas.
The sensitivity of RAT is quite low; There is a possibility that some really positive cases will not be identified and thus the disease will spread further.
“A timely examination of every individual symptomatic patient is not possible and will put an enormous strain on the health system and delay isolation and treatment. The optimal solution in such a situation is a syndromic management approach to diagnosis based on clinical symptoms and epidemiologically related suspects, “they said.
They also recommended that the vaccination status of all people tested for Covid-19 for both people tested by RTPCR and RAT must be entered into the sample referral form in the RTPCR app.
The information collected must be analyzed regularly in order to know the status of the vaccinated people with regard to Covid-19 and its severity, including mortality.
Going further, the experts said that district level serosurveillance could be planned using the EPI cluster sampling methodology.
“If the seroprevalence at the county level is greater than 70 percent (due to a combination of natural infection and vaccination), no lockdown should occur and a return to normal should be attempted.
“This will also help prioritize the districts for vaccination, meaning that vaccination should be given priority to districts with lower seroprevalence. A fine balance must be maintained between living and livelihood.”
The experts also said that when a large number of people are vaccinated at high pace with limited resources for Post-Vaccination Adverse Event Monitoring (AEFI), some adverse events and deaths are missed. While some of these AEFIs can be random, they can add to a hesitant vaccination in the end.
Also read | “Wrong and unfounded”: Ministry of Health rejects reports of CoWin data breaches
Also read | Baba Ramdev Changes His Mind Says He Will Take Covid Jab; call doctors God’s messengers
إرسال تعليق