Covid-19 pandemic scars will never leave the memory of mankind. Death is one of the ugliest realities of the pandemic and it is inevitable to stand by. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) director-general Dr Balram Bhargava has said that 92% of the deaths that occurred in India in 2022 were non-vaccinated people.

Only 10.2% of people who died in the pandemic belonged to the fully vaccinated group. The group which was fully vaccinated and died due to co-morbidities constitutes 91%. Whereas, those who were partially vaccinated form 21.8%. Around 83% of people had co-morbidities in the partially vaccinated group.

Role Of Vaccination: ICMR

Dr Bhargava said that the vaccination drive in India is a leading example for many to follow. According to him, the coverage of vaccination has helped in saving many lives, especially during the third wave by the Omicron variant in India.

The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) dropped down to 0.3% in the third wave as compared to 1.3% in the second wave. The main reason for this was coverage of vaccination which was negligible at the onset of the second wave. By the time we faced the third wave, the vaccination cover helped tremendously in coping with the deadly virus.

As per reports, the vaccination coverage at the beginning of the second wave was merely as low as 2.1% for both doses and 10.1% for partial vaccination. The result of the delayed vaccination in the second wave took 2.5 lakh lives and infected 1.9 crore people in a span of 117 days only.

In the third wave, the vaccination coverage was 90.8% for single-dose and 65.4%  eligible population had both doses. The third wave lasted for 41 days with 77.4 lakh covid cases and 27,118 deaths.

The joint secretary of the health ministry Lav Agarwal said, “The relentless efforts of healthcare and front line workers coupled with vaccination coverage have yielded results for effective containment of the recent surge”.

The maximum death happened due to the less coverage of the vaccination and the vaccination programme was designed and conducted across the country by the Central agencies only. Many experts feel that the number of death have been underreported in states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.