Three women in India get rabies shot instead of Covid-19 vaccine as cases surge, overtaking Brazil

India is the fastest country in the world to administer 100 million doses of the vaccine, but is reporting more than 130,000 cases per day

Authorities have allowed hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees to flock to the River Ganges for the Kumbh Mela festival

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Naga Sadhus, or Hindu holy men, participate in the procession for taking a dip in the River Ganges during the Kumbh Mela festival, to which crowds are flocking despite India’s surge in Covid-19 cases. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:05pm, 12 Apr 2021Updated: 6:25pm, 12 Apr 2021

Three women in their sixties who walked into a clinic in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine instead walked out with an anti-rabies shot coursing through their veins. Though it was a freak event, the incident seems to symbolise how the pandemic has India on the ropes, as it on Monday overtook Brazil to become the No 2 worst-hit country in the world behind the United States.

Officials said the women in Kandla village, instead of going to the floor where the vaccine was being administered, entered the outpatient wing on April 9, a day when anti-rabies shots were being given. The pharmacist on duty had left, and in his absence a colleague gave the shot without checking the women’s papers.

India has in the past few weeks gone from euphoria at having seemingly escaped the worst predictions of catastrophe to gloom at the speed and scale of the second wave. Though the health ministry on Sunday said it had become the fastest country in the world to administer more than 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, India is now experiencing its worst surge of the pandemic, with a seven-day rolling average of more than 130,000 cases per day.

India took 85 days to reach 100 million doses, while the US and China had administered 92 million and 61 million doses respectively in that timeframe, according to local media reports using data from the health ministry.

The authorities on Monday announced there had been 168,912 new infections recorded in the previous 24 hours, a day after posting a six-month high of 152,879 cases. Its total caseload of more than 13.5 million is now second only to the 31.2 million cases in the US, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The death count has also been rising steadily and now stands at 170,179, with 904 new deaths reported Monday.

Bollywood is embodying the resurgence of the disease, with barely a day passing without a star announcing that they have tested positive. Given that the film industry is based in Mumbai – the capital of Maharashtra, the worst-affected state in India – the news is perhaps unsurprising. The state is struggling with a shortage of ventilator-supported ICU beds and oxygen cylinders, according to the NDTV news agency.

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