More than 100 million Indians missed second Covid vaccine, data shows

INDIA's official vaccination data has revealed that more than 100 million people have not turned up for their second coronavirus vaccine dose, The Guardian said.

People's hesitation to take the second dose of the jab might endanger India’s target of inoculating all adults by 31 December, the report added.

Those who missed their second shot are at risk of catching Covid-19, the paper added.

“We have seen this complacency with tuberculosis patients. They start taking the drugs and after a few weeks, they feel better so they stop even though they have to take them for six months,” Bhavna Dewan, a health worker in Nainital, was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

“It’s a similar mentality with the vaccine. I’m sure they feel one dose is enough because no one is falling ill.”

Mansukh Mandaviya, India’s health minister, is urging states to address the issue. From next month, he said, health workers will make door-to-door visits to find the truants.

The figure of 103.4 million missed doses comes just a week after India celebrated administering one billion doses.

India has administered first doses to 725 million people, or to 77 per cent of its’ 944 million adults, and second doses to 316 million, or 34 per cent.

Experts have warned that giving the second dose might prove to be even more of a challenge if complacency has set in.

India reported 16,156 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday (28), the lowest in 243 days, according to the health ministry data.

For the last 29 days, new daily cases have been below 30,000. In the past few days, they have hovered around 13-to-15,000 a day, the lowest for eight months.

Life has returned to something very close to normal. People are celebrating festivals with abandon, socialising, shopping, and eating out. Experts have also been saying that, barring a new variant, a third wave seems a remote prospect, The Guardian report added.

Dr Satyajit Rath, a scientist at the National Institute of Immunology, has said that the 103.4 million figure was only a cause for concern if people never get their second shot.

“If people have always dallied a little in coming in for their second dose, maybe coming a week or two or a month later than prescribed because they were busy, then it is not alarming. It simply means that many of these 103.4 million people will catch up. But if a larger percentage of people are coming in late, then it is concerning. But we don’t know," he told the newspaper.