Lancet study: Covid vaccines may have prevented 42 lakh deaths in India in 2021

by Medically Speaking Team June 24, 2022

According to a new modelling research, Covid-19 vaccines are expected to have averted approximately 1.98 crore lives worldwide — out of a potential 3.14 crore fatalities — in the first year of the vaccination programme. In India, 42.10 lakh fatalities were avoided. The research was published in The Lancet Infectious Disease.

The analysis indicated that in the first year of the vaccination campaign, 1.98 crore out of a potential 3.14 crore COVID-19 fatalities were averted globally, based on excess deaths from 185 nations and territories.

According to the study, if the World Health Organization’s objective of vaccinating 40% of the population in each nation with two or more doses by the end of 2021 had been attained, an additional 5.99 lakh lives may have been spared.

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“For India, we estimate that 42,10,000 (over 42 lakh) deaths were prevented by vaccination in this period. This is our central estimate, with the uncertainty in this estimate ranging between 36,65,000-43,70,000 (over 36.6 lakh to 43.7 lakh),” lead author of the study, Oliver Watson from the Imperial College London, the UK, told PTI.

He stated that the India figures are based on estimations that between 48.2 lakh and 56.3 lakh people died in the nation during the epidemic, which is ten times the official total of around 5.24 lakh fatalities documented so far.

According to The Economist, 23 lakh individuals perished in India from COVID-19 by the beginning of May 2021, compared to government data of roughly 2 lakh at the time. The WHO estimated last month that there were 47 lakh Covid-related fatalities in India, a claim that the government denied.

“The saving of more than 19 million (1.9 crore) lives by the unprecedented rapidity of development and roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines is an extraordinary global health feat,” Professor Alison Galvani, from Yale University School of Public Health, US, said.

“Nonetheless, millions of additional lives could be saved by more equitable distribution of vaccines,” Galvani, who was not involved in the study, said in a statement.

The total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered in India has surpassed 196.44 crore, according to the Union Health Ministry. Despite the amazing speed with which the vaccine has been distributed throughout the world, more than 35 lakh COVID-19 fatalities have been documented, according to researchers.
The researchers employed a well-established model of COVID-19 transmission based on country-level data for officially documented COVID-19 fatalities between December 8, 2020, and December 8, 2021.

To adjust for under-reporting of fatalities in countries with inferior surveillance systems, they conducted a supplementary analysis based on the number of extra deaths documented over those predicted for the same time period.

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