MUMBAI, India — India is racing to
contain a second wave of the coronavirus, but its vaccination campaign is
running into doubters like Akbar Mohamed Patel.
اضافة اعلان
A resident of Mumbai’s densely
populated slum area of Dharavi, Patel survived a severe bout of the coronavirus
in May. The first wave prompted Mumbai officials to seal off his housing
complex, confining thousands of people for nearly two months.
Still, the current campaign has been
marred by a slow initial government rollout as well as skepticism and apathy
from people like Patel and his neighbors. “On social media we come to know this
is all a big game to make money,” Patel said. Of the vaccine, he said, “many
things have been hidden.”
The coronavirus, once seemingly in
retreat, is again rippling across India. Confirmed infections have risen to
about 31,600 daily from a low of about 9,800 in February. In a recent two-week
period, deaths shot up 82 percent.
The outbreak is centered on the
state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, the country’s financial hub. Entire
districts of the state have gone back into lockdown. Scientists are
investigating whether a new strain found there is more virulent, like variants
found in Britain, South Africa and Brazil.
Officials are under pressure from
Prime Minister Narendra Modi to aggressively ramp up testing and vaccination,
especially in Mumbai, to avoid disruptions like last year’s dramatic nationwide
lockdown and resulting economic recession.
“I am very categorical that we
should stop it, contain it, just here,” said Dr. Rahul Pandit, a critical care
physician at a private hospital in Mumbai and a member of the Maharashtra COVID-19
task force.
India’s vaccination campaign could
have global consequences.
Last week, Prime Minister Boris
Johnson said that an expected drop in Britain’s COVID-19 vaccine supplies
stemmed from a nearly monthlong delay in delivery of 5 million doses of the
Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured in India. The reasons for the
delay are not clear, but the manufacturer, Serum Institute of India, has said
shipments will depend in part on domestic Indian needs.
India is a crucial link in the
vaccination supply chain. Amid hoarding by the United States and other wealthy
countries, India has given away or sold tens of millions of doses to other
countries, even as it struggles to vaccinate its own people. Subrahmanyam
Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has said that the availability of vaccines in
India will determine how many doses go overseas.
While vaccinations were initially
available only in public hospitals, India is now giving jabs in private clinics
and enormous makeshift vaccination centers, and it is considering making them
available in pharmacies, too. Vaccination hours have been extended, and those
eligible can register in person and receive a shot the same day, bypassing an
online scheduling system.
The Indian government is playing
catch-up. Since it launched a nationwide vaccination drive two months ago,
uptake has been disappointing. Less than 3 percent of the population has
received a jab, including about half of health care workers. At the current
rate, it will take India about a decade to vaccinate 70 percent of its people,
according to one estimate. By comparison, roughly one-quarter of the population
of the United States has had at least one jab.
Not everybody in India has the
internet access needed to register for a shot online. But the campaign has also
been plagued by public skepticism. The government approved a domestically
developed vaccine, called Covaxin, before its safety and efficacy trials were
even over, though preliminary findings since then have suggested it works.
The other jab available in India is
the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which was suspended in some countries after a
number of patients reported blood clots and strokes, though scientists have not
found a link between the shots and the afflictions.
Some of the tepid response may come down
to apathy. A nationwide study released in February found that 1 in 5 Indian
people were likely to have already had COVID-19. Surveys in cities show even
higher prevalence rates. The disease is just one among many that people in
India worry about, joining tuberculosis, dengue fever and bird flu. Many people
are struggling to recover from the huge financial hit of India’s lockdown last
year and cannot afford to take time off work to stand in line for a shot.
“These are hand-to-mouth people.
Bread, butter depends on their daily work. They can’t sit back and relax and
wait for the wave to go,” said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the
Mumbai ward that includes Dharavi. “They can’t afford quarantine, so the only
option is to vaccinate these people as early as possible.”
Persuading the 800,000 residents of
Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, to get vaccinated is seen as critical. Residents
travel for work to every corner of the city of 20 million. Officials are
reintroducing what earlier in the pandemic they called the Dharavi model: If
the disease can be contained there, transmission can be curbed citywide and
even further afield.
It will not be easy, even though
just 5km away, a jumbo vaccination center is administering about 15,000
shots a day, free of charge.
Day and night, Dharavi is teeming
with life. People overflow from thin, corrugated metal houses, stacked on top
of each other like matchboxes, onto crowded, mostly unpaved lanes strung with
loose electrical wire. Animals skitter between parked motorcycles and piles of
debris. Shops, tanneries and factories are squeezed next to houses of worship
and community toilets.
“We have been OK all this while,”
Abdul Razad Rakim, a 61-year-old diabetic, said from a foldout chair in front
of the tiny apartment he shares with his wife, Shamim. “Why do we have to go?”
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