Union Health Minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said that the government plans to provide coronavirus vaccine to around 25 crore citizens by July 2021, under COVID-19 vaccine programme. He also said that the government would receive between 400 and 500 million vaccine doses for this programme ensuring that it is accessible to all.
State and UT governments had been informed to send details of "priority population groups.” This would segregate the sections of the population that should first receive the vaccine by the end of October.
"The Centre is working on plans for building capacities in human resources, training, supervision and others on a massive scale and roughly estimates to receive and utilise 400-500 million doses covering approximately 20-25 crore people by July. All this is under various stages of finalisation," said Vardhan.
"Our government is working round the clock to ensure that there is a fair and equitable distribution of vaccines, once they are ready. Our utmost priority is how to ensure vaccines for and everybody in the country," the minister said.
During a social media interaction, in the fourth edition of "Sunday Samvad", Dr Harsh Vardhan said that, "Vaccine procurement is being done centrally and each consignment will be tracked in real-time. Priority will be given to frontline health care workers.”
Frontline health workers including both government as well as private-sector doctors, nurses, paramedics, sanitary staff, ASHA workers, surveillance officers and many other occupational categories who are involved in tracing, testing and treatment of patients will first to get COVID-19 vaccine. He further informed that the government is also monitoring immunity data concerning COVID-19 disease.
"The government is offering full support to Indian vaccine manufacturers and is committed to taking all measures to ensure equitable access to the vaccine," he added.
The minister stated that a high-level committee under the chairmanship of Niti Aayog Member (Health) Dr V K Paul is drawing up the entire process.
This development comes after several candidates' drugs have entered the final phase of testing and trials. Three potential vaccines are being tested in India, including Covishield which was developed jointly by the University of Oxford and pharma giant AstraZeneca. Covishield is in Phase 2 and Phase 3 of human trials. If it becomes a success, it will be mass-produced by Adar Poonawalla's Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume.
"This is a work in progress which will be completed by the time the vaccines are ready to ensure the swift roll-out of an immunisation programme."
Mr Poonawalla has already shown his concerns about the production and distribution of the vaccine.” I ask this question because we need to plan and guide vaccine manufacturers both in India and overseas to service the needs of our country in terms of procurement and distribution," he said.
In July, Mr Poonawalla had suggested that Covishield would cost around ₹ 1,000 per dose and India would get around 30 million doses per month, although it can take two years to introduce entire India to the vaccine.
Challenges like storage and delivery of the vaccine particularly to the population in remote rural and mountainous areas are of grave concerns. Dr Vardhan has said the government plans to use the Universal Immunisation Program (UIP) which was introduced in India in 1978 as the Expanded Programme of Immunisation. This programme covers all districts in a phased manner which can be utilized to distribute the vaccine.
Other vaccine manufacturers are also being tested across the country. Vaccine developers like Bharat Biotech are in Phase 2 trials with COVAXIN and Zydus Cadila is waiting to receive approvals for Phase 3 clinical trials for its vaccine.
"Even if we have multiple vaccines available, they will all be safe and will elicit the requisite immune response against novel coronavirus." Dr Vardhan added, citing that it's not possible to comment on the superiority of one vaccine over the other.
India is the second worst COVID affected country in the world crossing a 65-lakh mark with a spike of 75,829 new cases and 940 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. Active COVID cases in India today stands at 9,37,625.