Amongst people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Maharashtra, vaccination numbers continued to remain poor even though they are at risk of contracting COVID-19 complications owing to their immunocompromised stage, stated reports.
Based on accounts, nearly 50,687 have taken their first jab, whilst 30,402 have taken both jabs. This depicts that only 20 per cent of 2.5 lakh people living on antiretroviral medicines took the first coronavirus jab. On the other hand, 12 per cent have been fully inoculated.
According to reports, an official from the Maharashtra State Aids Control Society stated that the real figures could be greater as the inoculation status doesn’t get registered to the antiretroviral centres in real-time.
An official elaborated on how when some patients come to take their medicines once in three months, their status is updated. Even with the National Aids Control Organization experts stating that vaccines are safe for HIV patients, some continue to fear it.
Apart from these, narratives claim that there are practical problems as well. These include the lack of identification documents such as the Aadhar Card. On the other hand, some accounts alleged that the state could have missed almost 10,000 cases of HIV cases owing to the drop in testing in 2020-21.
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