oppn parties Vaccine Production Needs To Be Increased And More Vaccines Need To Be Approved

Story Of The Day

Assessee Not Responsible For Ensuring TDS Is Paid To The Government: Delhi HC
OPINIONS : Strongly Expressed

January 22, 2025

People Are Talking About

Rohit Warns Sarfaraz, Police Use It To Warn Two-Wheeler Riders

News Snippets

  • Sikh extremists attacked a cinema hall in London that was playing Kangana Ranaut's controversial film 'Emergency'
  • A Delhi court directed the investigating agencies to senstize officers to collect nail clippings, fingernail scrappings or finger swab in order to get DNA profile as direct evidence of sexual attack is often not present and might result in an offender going scot free
  • Uniform Civil Code rules cleared by state cabinet, likely to be implemented in the next 10 days
  • Supreme Court reiterates that there is no point in arresting the accused after the chargesheet has been filed and the investigation is complete
  • Kolkata court sentences Sanjoy Roy, the sole accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case, to life term. West Bengal government and CBI to appeal in HC for the death penalty
  • Supreme Court stays criminal defamation case against Rahul Gandhi for his remarks against home minister Amit Shah in Jharkhand during the AICC plenary session
  • Government reviews import basket to align it with the policies of the Trump administration
  • NCLT orders liquidation of GoAir airlines
  • Archery - Indian archers bagged 2 silver in Nimes Archery tournament in France
  • Stocks make impressive gain on Monday - Sensex adds 454 points to 77073 and Nifty 141 points to 23344
  • D Gukesh draws with Fabiano Caruana in the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands
  • Women's U-19 T20 WC - In a stunning game, debutants Nigeria beat New Zealand by 2 runs
  • Rohit Sharma to play under Ajinkye Rahane in Mumbai's Ranji match against J&K
  • Virat Kohli to play in Delhi's last group Ranji trophy match against Saurashtra. This will be his first Ranji match in 12 years
  • The toll in the Rajouri mystery illness case rose to 17 even as the Centre sent a team to study the situation
Calling the case not 'rarest of rare', a court in Kolkata sentenced Sanjay Roy, the only accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case to life in prison until death
oppn parties
Vaccine Production Needs To Be Increased And More Vaccines Need To Be Approved

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-04-08 06:32:24

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

Is India's vaccination programme in the danger of getting derailed? Three things point to this. In the first, more than 10 states have made representations to the Centre for additional stocks saying that their stocks will not last for the next 3-4 days. Maharashtra’s case is particularly grim with reports of several centres in the state stopping vaccination due to low or no stocks. In the second, AstraZeneca has already served a legal notice on Serum Institute for reneging on supply commitments while Serum has petitioned the Centre to provide Rs. 3000 crore to ramp up production. In the third, despite three months having passed since the vaccination drive started, India is still making do with only two vaccine candidates and others have not been approved for inoculation in the country. Russia is willing to get Sputnik manufactured in India and India would do well to approve it after necessary tests. There are other candidates too which can be seriously looked at. India has manufacturing capacity and it should be used gainfully now.

The government has to take these decisions fast. It has to approve other vaccine candidates and get those vaccines manufactured in India. Import is an option but it will be costly as Serum supplies Covishield at a highly-subsidized rate of just Rs. 150 per dose to the government. At the same time, it must look into ways to ramp up production and supplies of both Covishield and Covaxin. Presently, India is administering between 25 to 35 lakh doses per day. At this rate, India needs 9 crore doses per month. At their present production capacity, both Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech are incapable of servicing the vaccine programme. Production has to be ramped up and new vaccines have to be approved if the vaccination drive is to be sustained at current levels and expanded in the near future.

 

Other Stories You Make Like

Editorials

Turmoil In Mollywood

Turmoil In Mollywood

NDA 3.0: Coalition Dharma

NDA 3.0: Coalition Dharma

In Depth

Supreme Court Gets Strict On Child Pornography

Supreme Court Gets Strict On Child Pornography

Editor's Pick

Budapest Chess Olympiad: India Are World Team Champions

Budapest Chess Olympiad: India Are World Team Champions
© 2014 India Commentary. All rights reserved.