Harsh Vardhan said the government would receive between 400 and 500 million doses (Representational)
New Delhi:
The government plans to provide Covid vaccines to around 25 crore (250 million) people, out of the country’s 130 crore (1.3 billion), by July 2021, Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan. Dr. Vardhan said the government would receive between 400 and 500 million doses of vaccines for this purpose and would ensure “equitable access.”
The Health Minister also said that state and UT governments had been recommended to send details of “priority population groups,” a reference to front-line health workers (government and private sector employees), that they will be the first in line to receive the vaccine. By the end of october.
“Procurement of vaccines is done centrally and each shipment will be tracked in real time. Priority will be given to front-line healthcare workers,” Dr. Vardhan said in the fourth edition of “Sunday Samvad“, his weekly interaction with the public on social networks.
“The government is offering full support to Indian vaccine manufacturers and is committed to taking all measures to ensure equitable access to the vaccine,” he added.
Dr. Vardhan’s comment on vaccines (and access to them) comes as several candidate drugs enter the final phase of testing and trials. Three potential vaccines are being tested in India, including Covishield, which was jointly developed by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Covishield is in phase 2 and phase 3 human trials and, if successful, will be mass-produced by Adar Poonawalla’s Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume.
A UK media report earlier this month said that Covishield, which is also being tested there, could be approved by health regulators in that country by the end of 2020 and implemented within six months.
Last week, Mr. Poonawalla took to Twitter to highlight the challenges in vaccine production and distribution. In his “quick question” to the government, he asked if the Ministry of Health had Rs 80 billion available over the next 12 months to purchase and distribute the vaccine worldwide.
“I ask this question, because we need to plan and guide vaccine manufacturers both in India and abroad to serve the needs of our country in terms of procurement and distribution,” he said.
Fast question; Will the government of India have Rs 80 billion available next year? Because that’s what @MoHFW_INDIA you need, buy and distribute the vaccine to everyone in India. This is the next worrying challenge we must tackle. @PMOIndia
– Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) September 26, 2020
In July, when Poonawalla spoke to NDTV, he suggested that Covishield would cost around Rs 1,000 per dose. She also said that India would receive around 30 million doses per month and that it could take up to two years for the entire country to be inoculated.
Days later, according to the Reuters news agency, the SII said it would manufacture an additional 200 million doses for the poorest countries, including India, following funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The government responded after Poonawalla’s tweet, saying it did not agree with the Rs 80 billion figure and had sufficient funds to purchase and distribute the vaccine. However, the government did not specify the amount it had set aside for this purpose.
However, as a Bloomberg report noted last month, there are concerns about warehousing and delivery barriers in the country, particularly with sections of the population in remote rural and mountainous areas.
During his Independence Day speech in August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that when a viable vaccine was ready, the government had a plan to ensure it reached all Indians.
Dr. Vardhan has said that the government plans to use the Universal Immunization Program (UIP), which was introduced in India in 1978 as the Expanded Program on Immunization and covers all districts in a phased manner, to distribute the vaccine.
In addition to Covishield, other candidate vaccines are also being tested across the country. Indigenous vaccine developers Bharat Biotech are in phase 2 trials with COVAXIN and Zydus Cadila is awaiting approvals for phase 3 clinical trials of their vaccine.
India is the second worst affected country in the world and, if the current trend of daily cases continues, it is likely to overtake the United States and become the most affected. The country has recorded more than 65 lakh of Covid cases since the outbreak began in China’s Wuhan in December last year.
The United States, the most affected country, has 73.8 lakh of cases, but has been registering fewer daily cases than India for several days; Government data this morning showed that India recorded more than 75,000 new cases in the last 24 hours.
With input from Reuters, PTI
.
