India saved over 3.4 mn lives with Covid vaccination campaign: Report

India was able to save more than 3.4 million lives by undertaking a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign at an unprecedented scale, said a report by Stanford University. The Covid vaccination campaign also yielded a positive economic impact by preventing a loss of USD 18.3 billion, the working paper by Stanford University and Institute for Competitiveness titled Healing the Economy: Estimating the Economic Impact on India’s vaccination and related issues’ released by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday said. Mandaviya said much before COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in January 2020, processes and structures to focus dedicatedly on various facets of the pandemic management were put in place. He virtually addressed the ‘The India Dialog’ session on the Economic Impact of Vaccination and Related Matters. “India under the leadership of honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji adopted a ‘Whole of Government’ and ‘Whole of Society’ approach in a proactive, preemptive and graded manner, thus adopting a holistic response strategy for effective management of COVID-19,” the minister said. The dialog was organised by Institute for Competitiveness and US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University.