CII suggests Covid vaccine for entire adult population in affected states

As Covid cases surge in Maharashtra and Kerala, CII has recommended that all states currently experiencing a significant spike in new cases should be allowed to inoculate all adult population in the entire city or state in either private or public vaccination centres irrespective of the identified priority groups. This could help saturate and short circuit the spread of the virus. CII has also said that it was also a good time to consider removing the emergency approval of vaccines and allow market procurement following government requirements are fulfilled.

According to CII, there are approximately 850 million people above the age of 20 years and the country needs to vaccinate at least 60% of the population for herd immunity to protect the rest. So the inoculation processes could set a target of 100 million vaccinations a month for three months and then step it up to 200 million vaccinations a month from July 2021.

After the government opened up the vaccination process for 45 plus with comorbidities and 60 plus from March 1, around 20,000 private healthcare providers were added to the existing 10,000. Most large private hospitals can expand capacity to 1,000 jabs per day in a week, from the current 200 jabs a day if they get the vaccine supply, CII pointed out.

CII has again stressed on the need to bring in the corporate sector to expand delivery capacity and encourage companies to come together and take on the responsibility of vaccinating whole wards and districts. CII has indicated willingness to work closely with local administration and use their corporate implementation capability to set up large scale vaccination camps. Companies could help with every district that has a significant industrial presence.

CII had several discussions with multiple stakeholders and has forwarded these suggestions to the central and state governments. Among the other recommendations made were allowing mobile vaccination clinics especially to reach rural areas, training non-medical support staff in providing services, ramping up of RT-PCR testing across all states by 70% and rigorous contact tracing. CII, along with the Healthcare Sector Skill Council (HSSC), was willing to facilitate such trainings and capacity buildings across states.

CII suggests that for ensuring faster rollout and also to provide confidence to workers at the workplace, business enterprises could be permitted to vaccinate their employees and immediate family members. Further, enterprises would be happy to assist in vaccination rollout for surrounding communities on a CSR basis as well.