THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Covid vaccination drive has slowed down considerably in the case of second dose at a time the pandemic spread has again started climbing in the state. Over 30 lakh people in the age group of 18 and above have skipped the second dose. Both doses are required for developing good immunity against severe infection. The state had benefited from the mass Covid vaccination drive during earlier waves in terms of severity and hospital admission.
“More than 11 lakh people tested positive in the January-February period this year. The unreported cases could be at least 10 times more. Though we expected them to take the second vaccine dose after 90 days, the decline shows that many are deliberately skipping the second dose,” said health department’s N C Krishnaprasad, who has been closely following the Covid data. The relaxation in rules, the reluctance of people to go for testing and low severity among those infected are considered as the reasons for skipping the jabs.
However, the health department data show that Covid spread is increasing. In fact, the Covid cases rose in the last 10 days after a steep decline since February. The average daily positive cases jumped from 400 to 700 since May 24. It crossed the 1,000-mark daily in the last four days. A total of 1,465 new cases were reported in the state on Friday. According to health department data, Ernakulam reported the highest with 479 cases, followed by Thiruvananthapuram (251), Kottayam (158), Kozhikode (140) and Thrissur (102).
Six recent recent deaths were also confirmed to be because of Covid on Friday. And the test positivity rate has come closer to 10%. Kerala continues to report the maximum number of active cases in the country. The Union health ministry has taken note of the situation and asked states to maintain vigil. Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Tuesday wrote to state principal secretary Rajan Khobragade pointing out the districts with high number of cases and advised the government to take preemptive action to control any emerging spread of infection.
While Maharashtra, which has also seen a spike in cases, decided to increase testing to 30,000, the number of tests in Kerala has come down to 10,000-15,000 per day. The health experts, however, think that the present situation is far from worrying and needs fresh strategies to deal with the changing nature of the virus. “The role of vaccines is to reduce the severity of disease. However, the role has now become limited because the virus in circulation causes less severity. The need of the hour is to keep monitoring the nature of the virus if the mutations cause more disease severity,” said Dr Anish T S, a member of the Covid management committee and assistant professor at the Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram.
Dr Althaf A, an epidemiologist and associate professor at Government Medical College Hospital, Manjeri, pointed out the role played by hybrid immunity, natural infection followed by a dose of vaccine, in checking the severity of disease. “The number of cases will be more if we increase testing. A second dose will give more protection but the present situation doesn’t warrant much concern,” he said.