New Delhi: As India continues to reel under the COVID crisis, a top virologist Dr Gagandeep Kang, who is also a member of the Supreme Court-appointed committee on medical oxygen, said that India delayed the process of bulk-buying vaccines unlike several other nations and may now have few options available in the international market.
“Aren’t we a little late to the table on this one?” NDTV quoted Dr Gagandeep Kang as saying.
“The rest of the world has been buying vaccines at risk for a year, so what’s the supply that is available in the market for us to go now and say we want to buy vaccines?” she said, according to the report.
Dr Kang’s comments come at a time when several states – including Maharashtra, Odisha, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh – are floating global tenders for vaccine supply, in an attempt to stave off a third Covid wave amidst a growing scarcity of vaccines. In many states, vaccine centres have shut down amid a dwindling supply.
The report quoting her father said: “If you can go to Zydus Cadila, Biological E, all the companies that are making vaccines which will be ready in the latter part of this year, tell them, ‘Ramp up your production, make as much as you can. If your trials are successful, we’ll take everything that you’ve got’. I think we’ll get more doses that way.”
Asked whether the government needed to make these investments despite the possibility of financial losses in the event a vaccine could not be fully developed, Dr Kang, the first Indian woman to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, said: “I definitely think we should be taking that risk and if we do, it sets us up well for the future as well because you establish a precedent where you will be willing to invest in innovation knowing that innovations cannot always succeed.”
India’s policy of procuring vaccines has been widely criticised. Unlike the United States which invested $10 billion in Operation ‘Warp Speed’ in March last year, even before key vaccines were fully developed, India never paid for the clinical development of vaccines, nor did it place advance bulk orders, preferring instead to make relatively small purchases for priority groups in its vaccination programme, the report said.
According to the report, the Serum Institute of India (SII) supplied 11 million doses and Bharat Biotech supplied 5.5 million doses in the first phase, which rolled out on January 16 and targeted frontline workers.
In contrast, by the end of November, the United States and the European Union had each pre-ordered 700 million doses of various vaccines which had not even been cleared for use at that stage.
Meanwhile, with the death of 4,454 people in the last 24 hours, India’s COVID death toll went passed the 3-lakh mark on Monday making the India only the third country after the United States and Brazil to record more than 3,00,000 fatalities.
However, fresh infections dipped to 2,22,315 on Monday, the lowest since April 15. Tamil Nadu continues to be the top contributor with 35,483 new cases. While Maharashtra reported 26,672 cases, Karnataka’s number stood at 25,979.
The Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana governments on Sunday extended their lockdowns to contain and combat the Covid-19 virus. While the shutdown will continue till June 8 in Rajasthan, it will go on till May 31 in Delhi and Haryana. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that the national capital will begin the unlock procedure in a phased manner if cases keep plunging.
Meanwhile, most of the states have supported the CBSE’s proposal to conduct the Class 12 Board examination for only 19 major subjects in a shortened format in July-August, The Indian Express reported that several states such as Kerala, Assam, Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Meghalaya have urged the Central Government to vaccinate teachers and students on priority to ensure their safety during their time at the test centre.
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