Indian govt has never spoke about vaccinating entire country: Health Secretary

"I just want to make this clear that the government has never spoken about vaccinating the entire country. It's important that we discuss such scientific issues, based on factual information only," the Health Secretary replied whem asked how much time it would take to vaccinate the entire country during a press briefing in the national capital.

"If we're able to vaccinate a critical mass of people and break the virus transmission, then we may not have to vaccinate the entire population," added Dr Balram Bhargava, Indian Council of Medical Research Director-General, who was present.

The officials said vaccination would depend on the efficacy of the vaccine and our purpose is to break the chain of Covid-19 transmission.

To another query, Bhushan replied that there was an inherent issue of vaccine hesitancy among a certain section of people and said, it was the collective responsibility of the Union Government, state governments, media, NGOs, vaccine manufacturers, pharma companies and other stakeholders to educate people and create awareness about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

In this connection, he stated that the Health Ministry was preparing a detailed guideline which would be shared with the states shortly, and one of the chapters in it dealt with communication addressing issues of vaccine safety.