ECONOMYNEXT – Ninety one percent of people dying from Coronavirus had not been vaccinated and 8.0 percent had received only one dose, an official said, indicating that only about 1 percent of persons dying had been vaccinated.
Around 77 percent of the dead were above the age of 60 years, who were the target group that was supposed to be vaccinated first.
Not Vaccinated
“According to the data 91 percent of the people who died have not taken a single dose of a vaccine, while eight percent have taken only one dose” Acting Chief Epidemiologist of the Epidemiology Unit in Sri Lanka, Samitha Ginige said.
“We can see some of the people are not taking the vaccine even when the vaccination program is operating island wide and it is for free”
“This is an issue to control the amount of deaths and the transmissibility of the virus.”
Ginige said 77 percent of the persons who died were above 60 years of age, 22 percent in between 30-59 and one percent was below 30 years.
The World Health Organization had advised countries to first vaccinate the population above 60 years, but the plan was abandoned soon after vaccination started.
Sri Lanka’s Government Medical Officers Association, an influential trade union had also come under fire for appropriating vaccines for their favourites and family members. The association had denied they did it.
Fastrack
Some people were also afraid to get the vaccine and were avoiding it, doctors said.
Authorities have now launched an accelerated campaign to vaccinate everyone above 60 years during the current lockdown.
Sri Lanka’s above 30 years of age population was 11.5 million for which 23 million doses are needed. So far Sri Lanka had got 20 million doses.
Sri Lanka recorded 198 deaths on August 23, 2021 the highest single day total, bringing the total number of deaths due to Covid 19 in the country to 7,366.
According to the ministry of health the current death rate of the country due to the virus has increased to 1.89 percent.
Most Coronavirus patients due from complications, such as kidney failure, heart attack not only respiratory failure from covid pneumonia.
Ginige said some persons who die from kidney failure and heart attack are later confirmed to have Coronavirus when they are tested.
About 65 to 70 percent of the deaths are due to other co-morbities, Ginige said it is a struggle for the health sector to separate the death under the two criteria.
“Some deaths occurred due to other issues such as kidney failures, heart attack, but their PCR tests in the post mortem will come as positive for Covid 19 virus and so they will be including in the
Patients with kidney or heart trouble or diabetes are usually unable to effectively fight most diseases.
A former senior epidemiologist Nihal Abeysinghe told EconomyNext said it was pointless to separately classify deaths because it was well known that those with co-morbidities get worse.
“They said will be severe for the people who have other co-morbidities if they get the Covid 19 virus, then why are they trying to separate deaths like due to Covid and with Covid” Abeysinghe said.
“I am sure they are in pressure, because I know I will also be in pressure if I was at that situation.”
When epidemics are over statisticians generally calculate the excess deaths from the long term aveger, a method also capture people who are not specifically tested or diagnosed and people who may die due to lack of hospital facilities for other patients when epidemics worsen.
Urgent Appeal
Ginige said the government aims plans to fully vaccinate above 30 years old population by the first week of September and asked the general public to inform the hotlines if there are elderly people in the house hold who are unable to come to the vaccination centres.
“We have mobilized mobile vaccination for that purpose,” he said. And if there is someone like that then it their children’s responsibility to inform that to the authorities
“And we ask anyone who have not taken the vaccine to take it immediately as soon as possible, because your delay may be the cause for you and your loved ones suffering.”
Ginige said the vaccination of 18-29 years of age population is expected to start from mid September this year.
“We gave the vaccination for some of the below 30 years of age, in apparel, Construction and other essential services sectors”
“But from mid-September we expect to start the vaccination for that group and it will be done according to the vaccinations we receive” (Colombo/ Aug 23/2021)