The pandemic is raging like a forest fire across the country. Apart from other measures that are urgently required, ramping up vaccination ...
The pandemic is raging like a forest fire across the country. Apart from other measures that are urgently required, ramping up vaccination rates is important. Speeding it up is likely to reduce severe infection, transmission rates and the likelihood of the emergence of vaccine-resistant mutations of the virus, rendering the current vaccine ineffective.
Currently, there are three major challenges with respect to the Covid-19 vaccine. One, ensuring adequate supplies in a short time. Two, sorting out our pricing policy for the vaccine and three, the administration of the vaccine.
Vaccine supply
The situation with respect to vaccination ought to have been better over 2021, yet we find that numbers vaccinated have fallen over in the first week of May. Many effective vaccines have been developed – Moderna, Pfizer, Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik to name a few. However, only two of these are being produced domestically (Covishield and Covaxin) and that too by only two manufacturers: the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech. To boost supplies quickly, we need action domestically and internationally.
Countries such as UK, US, Canada and those of the European Union have reportedly got more vaccines than they need to vaccinate their entire population. Some have excess stocks. This is a moment...
