The world was waiting with a bated breath for the Coronavirus vaccine last year. In record time, scientists around the world came up with the solution.
Many countries like Israel, Singapore, USA and China have already managed to vaccinate the majority of their population.
So, what has gone wrong with India’s vaccination drive? What’s the reason behind the second wave or surge? As per a report by Reuters it quotes that Indian scientists had shed light on another mutating India virus but the Indian government did not pay heed. Meanwhile, the country and economy opened up and we thought we could move ahead in life.
It seems we have vaccinated only 2 per cent of the population. With India having overtaken Brazil in terms of the number of cases, it is only behind the United States which had reported more than 31 million cases.
The situation looks very grim as precious lives are being lost and people are scrambling for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders.
As per records. Currently India has vaccinated more than 100 million people with Covishield and Covaxin. Now, Russia’s Sputnik V has been approved and deemed to be safe.
Experts say that the pace is slow and the target could be missed. More than 3 to 4 months were wasted in just our supplying the vaccines to countries around the globe and then only 45 plus people could be vaccinated. It is just this week that the vaccination drive for agegroup 18-45 has been opened up.
Reports show that countries who have vaccinated more than 40 per cent of their population, the COVID-19 incidence has come down.
As per Sanjay Lalwani, in an interview to rediff.com medical director, dean of the faculty of medicine and head of the department of pediatrics at Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune, “ The government had a vaccine from the month of January. The government should have given the vaccine to all population above the age of 45, right from the start.
I really didn’t understand why there was a delay in clearance of the vaccine, once the vaccine was cleared elsewhere.Second, the vaccine should have been used for our country only.”
“Let’s be very, very clear: We are not going to have a COVID-19-appropriate behaviour in our population like the government wants.
Only 15 per cent people will follow the COVID-19-appropriate behaviour. And 85 per cent of them will not follow it for month after month, year after year.
Third, there should be very fast clearance. This is a pandemic. You only look at the safety. Efficacy maybe a little bit here and there, because we have to prevent people dying from COVID-19.
They should have known that there are two or three candidates of vaccines now available and the production capacity of each manufacturing company. They should have allotted the vaccine to every state.
Now look at Maharashtra. Today, we had Covishield first and then we had Covaxin. Now they are looking at Sputnik V and now they are looking at one more coming from Zydus Cadila.”
A per Business Standard, vaccinating 70 per cent of India’s youth and middle-aged working population may require financial resources worth Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) or more.
This calculation assumes the cost of one dose of a vaccine to be Rs 400, approximated on the price announced by the Serum Institute of India.
Other vaccines, such as Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, and those which will get clearance later during the year, are likely to cost more than this, according to the data available on their prices.
Meanwhile, Adar Poonawala, CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar on Monday said that it is not possible to ramp up vaccine production overnight.
Amid the ferocious second wave gripping India, vaccine manufacturing is a specialised process. It is therefore, not possible to ramp up production overnight. ”
Poonawala further said producing enough doses for all adults in India is not an easy task.
He also said Serum has received “all kinds of support, be it scientific, regulatory and financial” from the goverment.
Meanwhile, the first consignment of the Sputnik V vaccine has landed in Hyderabad from Russia. It is 1,50,000 doses said Dr Reddy’s Laboratories CEO –API and services Deepak Sapra.