Welcome Move To Allow More Vaccine Candidates, But Production Needs To Be Ramped Up Too
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
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By Linus Garg
First publised on 2021-04-14 09:23:26
About the Author
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
View all posts by this Author
Things seem to be moving fast, at last. Close on the heels of the emergency use approval of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, the government has changed the rules to allow emergency approval of several other vaccine candidates which are on the WHO list of vaccines approved for emergency use or have been approved by regulators in the US, the UK, Europe or Japan. This approval will be subject to post-approval parallel bridging clinical trials in India in which first 100 recipients of each such vaccine will assessed for 7 days for the safety outcomes before the vaccines can be rolled out in the country.
This will at once expand the vaccine basket and also ease the pressure on Covishield and Covaxin, the two candidates that are now being used in India. It was clear that with the ambitious vaccine programme and the production capacity of both Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech, there was going to be a shortage of vaccine doses very soon. Already many centres across the country have been forced to either close down or ration the doses. The situation was alarming and could have derailed the vaccination programme. It could have also led to either corruption (through centres providing the vaccine at inflated costs) or use of influence to get the vaccine, depriving the common man from taking the jab.
The government has said that it will negotiate the pricing and supply part with the manufacturers. It has also indicated that the vaccines may be imported initially (either in ready form or in bulk and to-be-filled form) and will be made in India at a later stage. While this is a good step, the government will do well to get Serum and Bharat Biotech to ramp up their production facilities to make more doses of the two vaccines that have been in use. Since only 10 crore people have been vaccinated till now, India is far behind achieving the critical mass that will act as a safety shield by providing herd immunity against the virus. Hence, it needs vaccine doses fast and the government must not let the drive flag.
