India saved over 3.4 million lives by undertaking nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign — Report

India was able to save more than 3.4 million lives by undertaking a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign at an unprecedented scale, a report by Stanford University said.

The Covid vaccination campaign also yielded a positive economic impact by preventing a loss of USD 18.3 billion, the working paper by Stanford University and Institute for Competitiveness titled ‘Healing the Economy: Estimating the Economic Impact on India’s Vaccination and Related Issues’ released by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday said.

Mandaviya said much before COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in January 2020, processes and structures to focus dedicatedly on various facets of the pandemic management were put in place.

He virtually addressed the ‘The India Dialog’ session on the Economic Impact of Vaccination and Related Matters.

“India under the leadership of honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji adopted a ‘Whole of Government’ and ‘Whole of Society’ approach in a proactive, preemptive and graded manner, thus adopting a holistic response strategy for effective management of COVID-19,” the minister said.

The dialogue was organised by Institute for Competitiveness and US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University.

The paper also highlighted the impact of the lockdown and referred to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s statistical analysis that the COVID-19 tally could have reached about two lakh (0.2 million) without lockdown by April 11, 2020.

Due to lockdown measures, the actual cases only went up to about 7,500 by April 11, 2020, making a case for the lockdown stronger. The imposition of the lockdown also avoided two million deaths.

It further mentions that 100,000 lives were saved due to the lockdown (March-April), according to the Economic Survey (2020-21), and a COVID-19 tally of 200,000 if there was no lockdown and containment by April 11, 2020

“India was able to save more than 100,000 (0.1 million) lives through the lockdown in March-April 2020. Moreover, the country took around 175 days to reach the peak from its first 100 cases while most countries reached their first peak in less than 50 days (Russia, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, etc.),” the report said.

The paper discusses the role of containment as a measure to prevent the spread of the virus. It highlights that, as against the top-down approach, a bottom-up approach was critical in containing the virus.

Moreover, the report remarkably notes that robust measures at the ground level, like contact tracing, mass testing, home quarantine, distribution of essential medical equipment, revamping healthcare infrastructure and constant coordination among stakeholders at the centre, state and district levels not only helped contain the spread of the virus but also in augmenting the health infrastructure.

It elaborates the three cornerstones of India’s strategy — containment, relief package and vaccine administration.

It observes that these three measures were critical in saving lives and ensuring economic activity by containing the spread of COVID-19, sustaining livelihoods and developing immunity against the virus.

The working paper further notes that India was able to save more than 3.4 million lives by undertaking the nationwide vaccination campaign at an unprecedented scale.

It said the vaccination campaign was always on saving lives. However, the campaign also yielded a positive economic impact by preventing the loss of USD 18.3 billion, it added.

A net benefit of USD 15.42 billion occurred for the nation after taking into consideration the cost of the vaccination campaign, the report said.

Hailing the decision of early lockdown by the prime minister as a significant turning point, Mandaviya said it enabled the government to leverage community response in its five-pronged strategy namely Test, Track, Treat, Vaccination, Adherence for implementing Covid Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) and delivering a rapid and robust institutional response to combat COVID-19.

Mandaviya said the government focused on augmenting health infrastructure in terms of Covid-related beds, drugs, logistics ie, N-95 masks, PPE kits and medical oxygen, simultaneously up-skilling human resources though Centres of Excellences and deploying digital solutions such as eSanjeevani Telemedicine service, Aarogya Setu, COVID-19 India Portal etc.

Equal weightage was given to scaling up the testing infrastructure at an unprecedented rate exceeding the superlative figure 917.8 million tests conducted. Additionally, a network of 52 labs for genomic surveillance was established for monitoring emerging variants of the virus, he added.

The Health minister stated that building on this momentum, India launched the world’s biggest vaccination drive, garnering a coverage of 97 per cent first dosage and 90 per cent of the second dosage, administering 2.2 billion doses in all for eligible beneficiaries.

The drive focused on equitable coverage for all, hence vaccines were provided free of cost to all citizens, he added.

“Campaigns and digital tools such as ‘Har Ghar Dastak’, mobile vaccination teams as well as the inception of Co-Win vaccine management platform were leveraged to ensure last-mile delivery,” Mandaviya said.

A defining factor in the success of pandemic management was allaying fears, managing misinformation and infodemic in the community through targeted Information, education and communication, he said.

The Stanford University report reflected that the benefits of vaccination exceeded its cost and suggested that vaccination be considered a macroeconomic stabilising indicator contrary to just a health intervention.

“The cumulative lifetime earnings of the lives saved through vaccination (in the working age group) tolled up to USD 21.5 billion,” it said.

The report said, “The development of vaccines (COVAXIN and Covishield) helped fight the country the pernicious attack of the virus and not only inoculate a large number of people but also decrease the burden on healthcare system.”

Mandaviya said the relief package by the government for people catered to the welfare needs of the vulnerable groups, old-age population, farmers, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), women entrepreneurs among others and also ensured support for their livelihoods.

“With the help of schemes launched to support the MSME sector, 10.28 million MSMEs were provided assistance resulting in an economic impact of USD 100.26 billion which comes out to be about 4.90 per cent of GDP,” he further said.

New Delhi, Feb. 24 (PTI)