How India’s Covid-19 Vaccination Drive Covers 300 Million People

However, India also has its own advantages. As a global hub for vaccine production, its mass production lines can mass produce coronavirus vaccines developed by Western pharmaceutical companies or domestically, faster and cheaper than most other countries.

“All Indians who need to be vaccinated will be vaccinated,” Indian Health Minister Rajesh Bhutian said at a press conference on December 8.

Which coronavirus vaccine will be deployed first?

Of the three Covid-19 vaccine candidates awaiting approval from Indian regulators, two are locally produced in India.

One of these is Covishield, a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Indian Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.

The other is Covaxin, India’s first homemade coronavirus vaccine, jointly developed by Bharat Biotech and the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research.

Pfizer India has also applied for an emergency use authorization for the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and Bio NTech. Dr. VK Paul, Head of the National Expert Group on Covid-19 Vaccination, confirmed with CNN.

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, said his company currently produces 50 to 60 million Covishields a month and will increase production to 100 million a month after January or February. Stated.

However, Punawara revealed that his company would first focus on India’s immunity before sending the vaccine abroad.

According to the Serum Institute of India, Covishield can be sold to the Government of India for about $ 3 in two doses, and then in the private market for $ 6 to $ 8. This could be much cheaper than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is sold to the US government for $ 19.5 at a time, but Pfizer India has not announced Indian prices.

Covishield has another advantage. It means that it should only be stored at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2-8 degrees Celsius (36-46 degrees Fahrenheit). Pfizer vaccines, on the other hand, require an ultra-low temperature storage temperature of -75 ° C (-103 ° F), an infrastructure not found in India, and must be used within 5 days of refrigeration at high temperatures.

What are the preparations in India?

“We have the advantage of implementing a very large universal vaccination program throughout the country,” said Professor K. Srinath Reddy, Chairman of the Indian Public Health Foundation. “To some extent, our healthcare system is fairly well coordinated.”

However, vaccination of 55 million people annually is far from the goal of 300 million people in just eight months.

According to Health Minister Boushan, the country currently has 239,000 vaccinated people under the universal vaccination program, but is deployed to administer the coronavirus vaccine to avoid disruption of routine immunization. Less than 65% of vaccinated people are vaccinated.

He said the central government was working with the state to arrange additional vaccinated people, but did not say how many more staff would be added.

“To secure enough workforce to administer injections, monitor side effects and make sure people come back for the second injection-that’s a challenge we have to face. I think it will be, “said Reddy.

According to government guidelines released on Monday, 100-200 people will be vaccinated and monitored for 30 minutes after receiving an injection, according to CNN-affiliated News 18.

The Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system, a digital platform, will be deployed to track the delivery of Covid-19 vaccine with participating participants.

The government is also increasing inventories of cold chain storage equipment such as walk-in coolers, freezers, deep freezers, and ice-lined refrigerators. Currently, there are more than 80,000 cold chain devices in approximately 29,000 locations in the country, which can store enough Covid-19 vaccine for the first 30 million frontline workers, Boushan said.

“All the resources needed for vaccination have been provided to the state,” he added.

Manufacturers are also competing with time to increase the supply of syringes. Rajiv Nath, managing director of Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices, said the company is producing 560 million syringes annually as of June.

“Currently, we are producing about 700 million pieces a year, and we plan to increase the production rate to 1 billion pieces a year by the second quarter of next year,” he said.

Drawing from the election machine

India’s decades of universal vaccination programs have traditionally focused For children-and to a lesser extent for women. However, the driving force of the coronavirus vaccine is focused on adults and faces challenges both in terms of the vast number of shots and the gathering of people to receive them, Reddy said. It was.

And that’s where India’s electoral mechanism to mobilize the country’s huge adult population can help, he said.

“We have well-oiled machines that do this in stages in different parts of the country. It was a very orderly process that proceeded very smoothly even in the farthest corners of the country. It’s a process. It’s a fairly well-tested process for adult mobilization. “

“The same identification and lineup process can be easily reproduced here (in the case of vaccine drive). Of course, the administration of the vaccine itself must be done by trained people for that,” Reddy said. ..

And Reddy believes that training new vaccinated people is not a difficult task.

“The only problem is to safely give intramuscular injections and train people to monitor side effects,” he said. “We can actually hire people with a science background, preferably science graduates … they can be easily trained and brought into the process as vaccinated under supervision. . “

Do you want to vaccinate 1.3 billion people?

India, the second most populous country in the world, has a strategy of “immunizing critical masses and stopping their infection.” This eliminates the need to vaccinate the entire population of 1.3 billion, said Balram Burgava, director of the department. Indian Medical Research Council.

“The government has never talked about vaccinations across the country,” Health Minister Boushan said at a news conference last month.

After being vaccinated in the first stages of 300 million people, the Indian Public Health Foundation Reddy better assesses how much threat the virus poses and how many more people will be vaccinated. He said he could decide if he needed it.

“This is an evolving epidemic, and our response must also be adaptive in determining the number and timing of vaccinations,” said Lady.

“Situations can change, and by that time the virus may not be as threatening as it is now … but over a period of time, about 60% to 70% of the population believes it needs to be vaccinated. There will be. “