Police have arrested 14 people in India after they uncovered a fake Coronavirus vaccine programme that injected its victims with sea water.
At least 12 fake vaccination programmes were carried out in an around the country's financial hub in Mumbai between May and June, with the organisers charging their victims for the shots.
Over 2500 people were swindled by the scam organised by doctors and medical staff, who allegedly used their hospital access to create fake certificates and syringes.
Charges faced by the detainees include manslaughter, criminal conspiracy and fraud.
Doctors are arrested for fake Covid vaccine scam where 2,500 people were injected with SEA WATER in India https://t.co/V0LZ2q9xL7
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) July 6, 2021
Mumbai police department official Vishal Thakur said: '[The doctors] were using saline water and injecting it.
'Every fake vaccination camp that they held, they were doing this.
'We have arrested doctors - they were using a hospital which was producing the fake certificates, vials, syringes.'
India's Covid deaths relative to infections hit a record high in June, as a second wave of the virus ravaged the country's health services and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
According to India's health ministry as of this morning, there have been 30.62 million infections and 403,281 deaths due to Covid.
But some experts believe the actual case and fatality numbers to be far higher and are putting pressure on the authorities to report the numbers accurately.
According to Murad Banaji, a mathematician at Middlesex University, India's true coronavirus death toll could be closer to 2 million, while scientists at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation say India could only be detecting between 3 and 5 per cent of cases due to insufficient testing.
India’s vaccination programme is now underway, but the sheer size of the population - well over 1 billion - means that progress is destined to be painfully slow.
Less than 5% of the country's population has been fully vaccinated according to data from John Hopkins University, and it will be some time before the vaccines are successfully distributed throughout India's smaller cities and rural regions.
We managed to get a Covid secure, socially distanced trip to the beach and I was stuck by my sons’ (4 and 7) play. ‘Mummy, look at our slide we made it Covid secure with water. It’s now safe for you. Give it a try’ pic.twitter.com/6mRc0Oonup
— Dr Jenny Hallam ? (@HallamDr) August 27, 2020
In the case of the fake vaccination scam in Mumbai, Thakur said the police are conducting further investigations into the medical staff behind them, and expected that more arrests would be made.
Police began investigating the scheme when victims of the scam grew suspicious of the legitimacy of their certificates and reported it to the authorities.
Mumbai lawyer Siddharth Chandrashekhar has initiated legal action against the doctors after authorities confirmed last month they had already confirmed 2,000 victims of the scams.
The Bombay High Court said the allegations were 'really shocking' and urged local authorities to remain vigilant 'so that innocent individuals are not duped in future.'
However, the Indian government has thus far denied that there is widespread underreporting of Covid deaths, and does not plan to amend its official death toll or total number of cases.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
