E-Paper
Govt targeting 400-500 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine by July ’21
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government plans to receive and utilise 400-500 million doses of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine, when one is ready, to induce protection against the virus in about 200-250 million people by July 2021, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government plans to receive and utilise 400-500 million doses of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine, when one is ready, to induce protection against the virus in about 200-250 million people by July 2021, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said.
“A list of citizen groups that will require vaccine administration on priority is being drawn up by the health ministry in association with the state governments. There is a high-level expert body going into all aspects of vaccine procurement and delivery,” Harsh Vardhan said in response to Covid-19-related queries of social media users.
“For this, a format is being currently prepared in which states will submit priority population groups to receive vaccine, especially health care workers engaged in the management of Covid-19 such as testing, tracing and treating {patients}. We have placed a realistic target of end-October {2020} to complete this humongous exercise,” he added in a recorded video of him answering questions that were sent to him by people. The video was played on Sunday on his social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook as well as YouTube.
The list of frontline health care workers includes doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and sanitary workers, both from the government and the private sector. It will also include accredited health activists, surveillance officers and other workers who are engaged in managing Covid-19 patients.
Apart from health care workers, priority will also be given to the elderly — those who are above 65 years of age — and people who have underlying medical conditions.
Currently, the states are being closely guided to also submit details about cold chain facilities and other related infrastructure that will be required down to the block level for vaccine storage and delivery as part of the government’s immunisation programme.
The Centre is also working on plans for building capacities in human resource training and supervision on a massive scale, and also keeping an eye on immunity data with regard to Covid-19 while finalising these plans, the minister said.
A high-level committee under the chairmanship of Dr VK Paul, member (health) at the government’s policy think tank Niti Aayog, is looking into the entire process. After various discussions, it has been decided that the vaccine will be procured centrally, and each consignment will be tracked in real-time until delivery to ensure it reaches those who need it the most.
“The vaccine will be distributed based on pre-decided priority and in a programmed manner and it will be appropriately controlled to avoid any diversion or black marketing. To ensure transparency and accountability, details of the entire process will be shared in coming months,” the health minister said.
He added that various committees were working on understanding the timelines of availability of various vaccines under development in the country and obtaining commitments from vaccine manufacturers to make available the maximum number of doses for inventory and supply chain management.
India currently has two indigenous vaccine candidates in advanced stages of clinical trials. Bharat Biotech International Ltd is carrying out trials on Covaxin, which is being developed using a virus isolated by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Virology, Pune; and Cadila Healthcare Ltd is testing a candidate called ZyCov-D.
Harsh Vardhan also said that while clinical data on the vaccine candidates was still emerging, it wouldn’t be prudent at this stage to comment on one vaccine’s superiority over another.
“… even if we have multiple vaccines available, they will all be safe and will elicit the requisite immune response against novel coronavirus”.
The vaccines developed and tested outside India that have proven to be safe, immunogenic and efficacious in clinical trials would need to undergo bridging studies to prove their safety and immunogenicity in the Indian population “although these studies can be conducted with much smaller sample size and end quickly,” he added.
On the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, the minister said that it was still under consideration by the government.
“The matter is still under consideration, and no decision has been taken as yet on the Phase 3 trials,” he said.
On the subject of conducting human challenge experiments in India, wherein participants are exposed to the virus in a laboratory controlled setting to test the vaccines, the minister raised ethical concerns.
“India is not planning to venture into such trials until the method is proven to have an established benefit as per global experience. India has robust processes in place to ensure the vaccines that successfully complete the clinical trials are safe and effective against the novel coronavirus,” he said.
“When conducted, human challenge studies should be undertaken with abundant forethought, caution, and oversight. The value of the information to be gained should clearly justify the risks to human subjects,” he added.
