NEW DELHI: The Centre’s Covid-19 vaccination plan includes those with comorbidities, along with people above 50 as the third priority group, but the government does not have a concrete database of younger people with underlying diseases.
The government has said that 30 crore people, healthcare and frontline workers — 1 crore each — and 27 crore individuals comprising elderly and those with comorbidities will be immunised against the Covid-19 in the first phase.
This is in line with the recommendations by the National Expert Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Administration.
Officials in the health ministry, however, said while it has a database of elderly people derived from the Census of India’s Report of The Technical Group on Population Projections, 2019, details of younger people with underlying conditions are still sketchy.
“Our estimation of the third priority group is based on the understanding that around 80% of those with comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer and chronic lung and kidney disease are above 50,” a top health ministry official told this newspaper.
The details of the other sub-group will largely come from the non-communicable disease centre at community health centres and district hospitals, the official said.
He added that for those who may not be registered at the centres and must be seeking treatment in the private sector, states may be asked to carry out a household survey and procure details.
The overall prevalence of diabetes in all 15 states of India, for example, was estimated at 7.3% and it varied from 4.3% in Bihar to 10% in Punjab, as per a study published in the Lancet in 2017.
The age-adjusted prevalence of hypertension was 11.3% among persons aged between 15 and 49.
This suggests that a much higher number of people younger than 50 years — rather than less than 60 lakhs as estimated by the health ministry for the vaccination drive — may be suffering from comorbidities.
“If one looks for comorbidities among those coming to hospitals that will be very different from those in the population as those who are well don’t come to health facilities,” said public health researcher Oommen John.
Government announces genomic surveillance
In the wake of the new strain of Covid-19 detected in the UK, the Centre has formed a genomic surveillance consortium for laboratory and epidemiological surveillance of circulating strains in India.
The genomic surveillance consortium, INSACOG, has been formed under the leadership of the National Centre for Disease Control of the Union health ministry.
In India, over 50 samples of UK returnees are under sequencing at the designated laboratories to check whether they carry that the mutant virus that is believed to be more transmissible.