Covid vaccination reflections

We are running several stories in today’s issue of this newspaper on a matter that is of great moment not only to this country but the whole wide world. Yes, you guessed right. These reports are about the vaccination roll-out against the Covid virus which which is now ongoing and is a matter of highest national priority. What clearly emerges is that there is no unity among particularly the various medical experts, both in the health bureaucracy and health professionals outside it, on whether we are setting about this war against the virus in the correct way. That is clearly evident in the differing statements issued one after another by various concerned parties.

Take the statement issued by Infectious Diseases Forum of Sri Lanka, comprising many eminent doctors, who have warned that if the elderly are not vaccinated, the entire purpose of the of the vaccination program would have been in vain. The Forum has accused those responsible of “maldistribution” of vaccine and described an alleged decision of the Health Ministry – whether correctly or not we do not know – not to vaccinate people between the ages of 30 and 59 years as “meaningless.” Nobody, as far as we know, has made an authoritative statement on the age cohort who will be or will not be vaccinated. What we do know that older people and those with non-infectious diseases like diabetes are considered more vulnerable and deserve priority.

On the other hand, there is what Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle, the State Minister of of Primary Health Care, Epidemics and Covid Disease Control, had told reporters last week. She alleged that top officials of the Health Ministry had taken snap decisions on the vaccination roll-out in complete disregard of Ministry-sanctioned recommendations made by a technical committee. Such rash decisions were the reason for what she calls the “sudden appearance of vaccination centers.” She has added that these officials even override directives of the President given via the task force appointed to oversee the vaccination drive. A report we publish today quotes the state minister saying “When decisions have already been made (regarding the roll-out timetable) these officials suddenly call at night and say start the program right away. We can’t do it this way.”

Are all these accusations and allegations correct? It is high time that somebody in authority cleared the air. This business of who rates priority age-wise is not clear although we believe that the vaccine will be administered to all age groups in high risk areas identified and mapped as ‘red spots.’ Most of these are in the densely populated areas of the Western Province and commonsense would tell us that as many of those possible, regardless of age, living in riskyh areas should be vaccinated. We all know that the already procured doses of vaccine falls far short of what is needed to cover our total population of 22 million plus. Thus the thrust of the current effort is to first cover the Western Province and this is what seems to be attempted at present.

Fortunately there have been no reports of vaccine stocks running out on a large scale. True, vaccine ran out in some centers with long lines of people awaiting their turns but this has not been widespread. Colombo’s Mayor Rosy Senanayake has denied a widely distributed social media post that she had submitted a list of names for preferential vaccination at a center at the Colombo Public Library. Her media secretary had said that the mayor had visited that center following these reports and instructed that those using her name be denied vaccination. We cannot comment on the rights and wrongs of these allegations for the simple reason that we do not know. But the professionally tabulated list doing the rounds had several well known names, many of them affluent.

We all know that influence peddling is a fine art that is widely indulged in this country. Nobody did or could complain about front-line health workers, armed forces and police personnel etc. being accorded priority. But senior health official have confirmed that there had been attempts to pressure officials. There have been people armed with numbers who had gone to various vaccination points expecting favours. But those of them we spoke to said that they had to wait hours on line though they were not forthcoming about the origin on the numbers they carried. All that suggests that not everything has been happening above board; but that’s something that we are well used to in this so-called independent, sovereign, democratic, socialist republic of ours.

However that be, there is one area that urgently requires clarification and that relates to age-priority. Different things have been said at different times. The College of Community Physicians had noted that the vaccine prioritization of of the Ministry of Health had deviated from the original plan. Targeting the 30 – 60 age group “had been implemented in a few selected communities and this is a clear deviation from the scientifically agreed prioritization statement in the National Vaccine Deployment Plan.” There has been an explanation that the decision to vaccinate those between 30 and 59 was due to high transmission rate within this age group.

What is necessary is to clear the air on this matter. Obviously communications on this drive is far from satisfactory. People must know what’s what and that part of the act must be urgently put right. General Shavendra Silva who heads the National Operations Center on Covid has said that over 175,000 frontline workers and over 100,000 in high risk areas in the Western Province have been already inoculated. There’s a lot more distance to cover in this province alone, but doing that would mean significantly reducing the national risk. A regular contributor has in an article in this newspaper made a very complimentary reference to his personal experience at Dehiwela. That’s a clear demonstration of the fact that regardless of our penchant of criticizing most things Lankan, there is much that we can do and we have the people to do it.