Vaccination should be free for all citizens

Dr T. Jacob John, clinical virologist

- MINI P. THOMAS

His is a lone voice in the wilderness. As the debate over vaccine prices intensifies, Dr T. Jacob John says that vaccines should be given free. “Pandemic control is the responsibility of the Central government,’’ says the former director of ICMR’s Centre for Advanced Research in Virology. He attributes vaccine shortage to lack of planning. “Fail to plan and you have planned to fail, says John, a retired professor and head of clinical virology and microbiology at Christian Medical College, Vellore. Excerpts from an exclusive interview:

Q/ Some people who were vaccinated still got infected. There is widespread concern about whether vaccines really work, especially on new variants.

A/ There are three categories: (1) one-dose recipients; (2) two-dose recipients but within a week after second dose; (3) two-dose recipients, past one week of the second dose. The primary purpose of vaccination is to prevent disease and death. Vaccination does not protect against infection (unless hyper-immunized with more doses). Protection against disease has a spectrum: severe disease is prevented in almost all in the third category, irrespective of which vaccine, but mild or even moderate disease may occur in a minority. For prevention of moderate disease, Covaxin has an edge over Covishield.

In the first category, one must assume no protection against disease (with a caveat that Covishield may offer some protection, but not Covaxin). However, even though vaccination does not protect against infection per se, vaccinated persons are less susceptible to easy infection; they have lower virus loads; they recover faster from infection than unvaccinated persons. Thus vaccinated persons are less efficient in virus transmission. It is for these reasons that vaccination is able to control infection in the community.