December 19, 2020

Andrew Campbell 

India, the second worst-hit country by the Covid-19 pandemic in the world, targeted to start vaccinating people in January 2021.

Up till December 20, there are 10,031,659 coronavirus pandemic cases in India. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has confirmed that 300 million people will take the first doses of the Covid vaccines. Among them, 30 million health care officials, policemen, soldiers and volunteers will be the first group to receive the vaccines, then 270 million defenseless people who are mostly aged over 50 and 10 million others with critical comorbidities.

Although being one of the global hubs for vaccine manufacturing, India has the advantages of faster and cheaper vaccine than most of the other countries, Indian government still needs to face the challenge of people’s concern, especially on monitoring "adverse events" after immunization. Besides, according to “The GOQii Covid-19– The Way Forward” survey, 53% Indians are unsure about taking Covid vaccine.

Photo:Webshot.