India expands faltering vaccine drive as new cases soar

India's devastating Covid surge accelerated further on May 1 with more than 400,000 new cases recorded in 24 hours, as it opened its faltering vaccination programme to all adults.

Indian authorities lowered their guard in the early part of the year after infections fell, lifting restrictions on most activity and allowing mass religious and political gatherings to take place.

Less then two months after the health minister said India was in the "end game" of the pandemic and New Delhi sent millions of vaccines abroad, the surge has sent worried Indians rushing for the jabs still in the country.
A crowd of around 100 people formed outside one Delhi hospital on Saturday as a hospital attendant came out regularly to call out numbers to people who had booked.
"There are so many people that are getting sick and if we get better we ensure that other people... do not get infected so we just wanted to be here as soon as possible," said one of those waiting, Aadya Mehta, 25.

Following the recent surge, exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine by India's Serum Institute and of Bharat Biotech's homegrown Covaxin have now been frozen to prioritise India's needs.
Until now, only "frontline" workers like medical staff, people over 45 and those with existing illnesses have been given vaccines.

But even this more modest programme has stumbled, with some areas running out of shots and others throwing them away because of a lack of demand, in part because of the recent surge.
"The queues here are so colossal," said Jayanti Vasant as he waited for hours at a busy vaccination centre in Mumbai this week. "The people are just fighting amongst themselves."
So far around 150 million shots have been administered, equating to 11.5 percent of the...