New Delhi

India was able to save over 3.4 million lives by undertaking a nationwide vaccination campaign against Covid at an unprecedented scale, a working paper by the Stanford University and Institute for Competitiveness has highlighted. Three cornerstones of the national strategy – containment, relief package, and vaccine administration - proved to be crucial in saving lives and cutting down the spread of the virus. The approach was instrumental in "ensuring economic activity by sustaining livelihoods, and developing immunity", underlines the working paper titled “Healing the Economy: Estimating the Economic Impact on India’s vaccination and related issues”. It was released on  Friday (February 24) by Health Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya.

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India vaccination campaign and 'positive impact for economy'

The vaccination campaign helped in preventing a loss of $18.3 billion, according to the report. "A net benefit of $15.42 billion occurred for the nation after taking into consideration the cost of the vaccination campaign," it stated, adding that "as against the top-down approach, a bottom-up approach was useful in curbing the spread of the virus". Contact tracing, mass testing, home quarantine, distribution of essential medical equipment, revamping healthcare infrastructure, and constant coordination among stakeholders at the centre, state, and district levels were the measures at the ground level that helped.

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India's Health Minister on Friday hailed the decision of an early lockdown by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as " a significant turning point," a government statement highlighted. The country saw one of the toughest lockdowns in the world. He also referred to the five-pronged strategy of "test- track – treat – vaccination – adherence" in the fight against coronavirus.

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The country began the world's largest vaccination campaign about two years ago and has so far given 2.2 billion doses. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has logged the second highest number of cases in the world after the United States. The Stanford research also observes the positive impact of schemes rolled out by the government to support small businesses and vulnerable people.

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