By Raju Vernekar
Pune, Sept 27:
The Pune based vaccine manufacturer- Serum Institute of India’s chief on Friday said that the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare would need to spend Rs 80000 crore to buy and distribute Covid-19 vaccine to everyone in the country.
SII Chairman Adar Poonawalla asked whether the Government in India would be able to garner Rs 80000 crore over the next one year to provide Coronavirus vaccine to every individual in the country. Taking to Twitter, Poonawalla said getting the financial resources to buy and distribute the Coronavirus vaccine to every individual would be the next big challenge of the pandemic.
“Quick question; will the government of India have 80,000 crores available, over the next one year?” Poonawalla asked in a tweet. “Because that’s what @MoHFW_INDIA needs, to buy and distribute the vaccine to everyone in India. This is the next concerning challenge we need to tackle. @PMOIndia,” the CEO of the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume tweeted. “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,” Poonawalla said in another tweet.
Explaining the need to ask questions on the financial cost of Coronavirus vaccine, Poonawalla said that he was asking the question because sound planning would guide domestic as well as international vaccine manufacturers better in terms of procurement and distribution in the country.
SII is at present involved in the manufacture and human trials of the Coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca. The human trials of the vaccine are undergoing the third and final phase. Earlier this month, the SII had paused the clinical trials of the vaccine candidate in view of the directions of the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on September 11, after AstraZeneca, paused the trials due to “an unexplained illness” of a volunteer in UK, who was administered the vaccine. However, on September 15, the DCGI gave permission to the SII to resume clinical trials.
At present, three vaccine candidates are undergoing human trials in India. Indigenous vaccine candidates of Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila are testing vaccine efficacy and safety in a phase I and II human trials. SII is undertaking a 1,600-participants’s Phase III clinical trial. The results of the Phase III trial study by SII–AstraZeneca are expected by end 2020. Besides the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), in tie-up with Indian drug maker Dr Reddy's Labs, has also applied for DCGI nod to begin Phase III trials for “SputnikV” vaccine in India.
Ever since the human trials of several Coronavirus vaccines started, concerns over vaccinating huge populations among developing and poor economies have been a concern. A mass vaccination program to ensure the supply of coronavirus vaccines to the developing and poor nations is also being run by various multilateral institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.
The concerns have also been raised over the moves by several rich nations led by the United States of America and other European nations to corner the first batch of vaccine doses for their own population at the cost of poor nations.
