Haven't abandoned states on Covid-19 vaccine: Niti Aayog's V K Paul

The government on Thursday said that the Centre was doing all the heavy lifting to bring foreign vaccines to India and that it had not abdicated its responsibility towards the states.

In a statement, which it said was meant to dispel “myths” about the government’s vaccine efforts, Niti Aayog member-health V K Paul said the fact that global tenders from states had not given any results only reaffirms what the government had been telling the states from day one: “That vaccines are in short supply in the world and it is not easy to procure them at short notice.”

States such as Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana have tried to procure foreign-made vaccines by floating global tenders. Companies, including Moderna and Pfizer, have said they will deal only with the Centre and not state governments.

Paul said the states that had not achieved good vaccine coverage of healthcare and frontline workers in the three months that the Centre ran the vaccination drive wanted greater decentralisation. “The states very well knew the production capacity in the country and what the difficulties are in procuring vaccines directly from abroad. In fact, the government ran the entire vaccine programme from Jan­u­ary to April and it was quite well-administered compared to the situat­ion in May,” Paul added.

He maintained that the Centre was funding vaccine manufacturers, giving them quick approvals and ramping up production to bring foreign vaccines to India and that the liberalised vaccine policy was a result of the incessant requests by the states to give them more power.

Russian vaccine Sputnik’s trials got accelerated because of the government’s efforts, Paul claimed, adding that Russia had already sent two tranches of the vaccine and accomplished tech-transfer to Indian companies that would start manufacturing it soon.

Sputnik will be manufactured by six companies coordinated by Dr Reddy’s Lab. The government is also supporting Zydus Cadila, Bio E and Gennova, Paul said, for their respective indigenous vaccines through liberal funding under the Covid Suraksha scheme and technical support at national laboratories. It is estimated that the Indian vaccine industry will produce over 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, Paul said.

About invoking compulsory licensing, he said that was not a very attractive option since it is not the “formula” that mattered but active partnership, training of human resources, sourcing of raw materials and highest levels of biosafety labs. “We have gone one step ahead of compulsory licensing and are ensuring active partnership between Bharat Biotech and three other entities to enhance the production of Covaxin. Similar mechanism is being followed for Sputnik,” Paul said.

Covaxin production, he added, is being increased from under 10 million per month to 100 million by October. Additionally, three public sector undertakings — Indian Immunologicals, Bharat Immuno­logicals and Biologicals — along with Bharat Biotech and Maharashtra state-owned Haffkine will together aim to produce up to 40 million doses by December.

The Niti Aayog member also said that the decision on vaccinating children will be taken by India’s scientists after adequate data is available based on trials.

No country in the world, he said, was giving Covid vaccines to children under 12 years and the World Health Organization had also not recommended it yet. “Studies about the safety of vaccines in children have been encouraging. Trials in children in India are also going to begin soon.”