The Lancet medical journal’s article criticising India’s response to its national Covid-19 outbreak has faced sharp criticism from Indian frontline workers. The journal’s words were in line with many other critiques published in Indian newspapers and magazines earlier, but the article elicited a more bristling response than others.
Leading this criticism of The Lancet’s approach is 90-year-old Dr Devendra D Patel, who has 6 national awards, including a Padma Shri. Speaking to Asian Voice exclusively, he said, “The Lancet should understand that India is a country with a population of 1.39 billion people. The population of Europe is 746.4 million; and that of the USA is 328.2 million. The combined population is 1,0746 billion. Considering the population against the number of people vaccinated, India is doing far better than other countries with less population.
“USA started the vaccination on 14 December 2020 and vaccinated 256 million to date. UK started on 8 December and gave the first dose to over 60 million people till now. Australia started on 22 Feb and vaccinated 2 million till today. While India started on 16 Jan 2021, it has vaccinated 180 million citizens (at least one dose) as of today. That is nearly 9% of its entire population! There are more reasons to appreciate the Indian Government than not. It lifted the ban on export of HCQ and Paracetamol during the height of epidemic. Despite shortage of vaccine in India, our government had the magnanimity to export 66 million dosage abroad on humanitarian grounds.
“Lancet Journal made a ludicrous statement that ‘Government seemed more intent on removing criticism on Twitter than trying to control the pandemic’. It is well known that the States and Centre have been tirelessly working against this tsunami that has inundated our already constrained infrastructure. India is better prepared for the possible third wave.”
