Please don't question efficacy of locally-developed vaccine: Union min Reddy

“Vaccines have been approved only after testing. I say this confidently that the vaccines will benefit everyone,” Reddy said.

Union minister G Kishan Reddy on Saturday assured people the vaccine developed in India has undergone rigorous testing before being approved and will benefit all as the Centre launched its massive inoculation drive. Reddy also pointed out that people tend to question the vaccines developed locally and choose to recognise the efficacy of vaccines and medicines developed abroad.

Reddy requested people to refrain from asking questions regarding efficacy of the vaccines. (Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times)

“I request people to not say such things. Medicines tested in other countries are considered good but when our scientists toil and develop medicines made in India, people view it like that. I request not to discuss things like this,” Reddy, the Union minister of state for home affairs, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Two Covid-19 vaccines manufactured in India, one developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, and the other by Bharat Biotech, are being administered during the drive.

“Vaccines have been approved only after testing. I say this confidently that the vaccines will benefit everyone,” Reddy added.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress have engaged in a bitter war of words with the opposition party's Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari questioning the authorisation of emergency use approval of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

Tewari, the Lok Sabha member from Anandpur Sahib, on Saturday again questioned the government over lack of public representatives stepping forward to take the first jabs in the inoculation drive which was kicked off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan responding to Tewari’s allegations said the lawmaker was keen on ‘spreading distrust and rumours.’

Tewari had earlier also questioned the efficacy of Bharat Biotech’s vaccine in January. On January 6, Tewari accused the government of politicising the pandemic for its own profit and licensed a vaccine without waiting for its Phase 3 trial results. “The BJP government has done a great disservice to that company which must have invested crores of rupees in research and development. In their quest to prove their ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ they have licensed a vaccine whose phase III trials are not complete,” Tewari was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Tharoor, the Congress parliamentarian from Thiruvananthapuram, called the decision to grant emergency use approval a ‘hasty’ decision which would impact India’s ‘reputation in the vaccine world.’ Tharoor in a series of tweets criticizing the government said ‘vaccine nationalism’ has trumped over established scientific protocols. “India actually has a good reputation in the vaccine world, both as a producer (60 per cent of the world's vaccines) and as a consumer (the success of polio and smallpox vaccination campaigns). This unseemly haste risks jeopardising both, especially if COVAXIN turns out to be ineffective,” Tharoor tweeted.

“Worse, if it turns out to be unsafe. But it is typical of a government that prefers slogans over substance. Chest-thumping 'vaccine nationalism', combined with the Prime Minister's "Atmanirbhar Bharat" campaign, has trumped common sense and a generation of established scientific protocols,” he further added.

Several other politicians like Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury had also questioned the government’s emergency use authorization of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also reassured citizens that the vaccine has been granted emergency use authorisation only after scientists were assured of their safety and effectiveness after launching the countrywide Covid-19 vaccination drive. PM Modi also urged people to not pay attention to rumours related to the vaccines.

The government is targeting to inoculate close to 300 million people in the first phase of the nationwide vaccination programme. In the first phase, 30 million healthcare and frontline workers and elderly people are going to get the vaccine.