New Delhi, June 24: Vaccines developed to fight Covid-19 helped prevent more than 42 lakh potential deaths in India in 2021, according to a mathematical modelling study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
The estimates based on excess deaths from 185 countries and territories showed that globally 19.8 million out of a potential 31.4 million Covid-19 fatalities were prevented in the first year of the vaccination programme.
A further 599,300 lives could have been saved if the World Health Organization’s target of vaccinating 40 per cent of the population in each country with two or more doses by the end of 2021 had been met.
“Our findings show that millions of lives have likely been saved by making vaccines available to people everywhere, regardless of their wealth. However, more could have been done. If the targets set out by the WHO had been achieved, we estimate that roughly 1 in 5 of the estimated lives lost due to Covid-19 in low-income countries could have been prevented,” said lead author Dr Oliver Watson, from Imperial College London.