HYDERABAD: Rooting for higher vaccination rate in the country, healthcare industry leaders on Friday said ramping up vaccination will be key to minimizing the effect of the third wave as well as boosting the overall economic growth in the near-term.
“What we have seen around the world where the third wave has set in is countries… where the vaccination rate has been higher, there the people are getting milder forms of disease. There are far fewer deaths and far fewer hospitalisation cases,” Hari Prasad, president, Apollo Hospitals Group, said while participating virtually in CII’s ‘Covidonomics Conclave’ on the theme ‘Economic resilience, healthcare and safety amidst Covid.’
Suchitra Ella, deputy chairperson, CII southern region & co-founder and joint MD, Bharat Biotech International, too stated that vaccines have emerged as an ‘antidote’ for the economic slowdown. Ella also batted for ramping up investment in healthcare, logistics and R&D to accelerate the pace of economic recovery.
The industry leaders also stressed upon the need for adoption of ‘covid appropriate’ behaviour such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance by the public to reduce the impact of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Sameer Goel, chairman, CII Telangana & managing director, Coromandel International said the second wave of the pandemic has mainly hit the domestic demand and stated that there is need for more policy measures to boost the demand and to support industry.
