India rekindles hope of poor nations by launching the world’s largest vaccination drive
New Delhi-India has kicked off the world’s largest vaccination campaign to immunise more than 300 million people by this summer. About 3,000 sites have been opened across the country, and health officials promised that the number will grow in the coming weeks. More than 191, 000 were vaccinated on the first day.
The rollout of the vaccine program is serving India’s ethical commitments to developing and poor nations, which have real concerns that they are left to fight Covid-19 deadly disease with their bare-hands. The government granted emergency approval to two vaccines — a locally manufactured version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and a vaccine called Covaxin, both sold at $2.75 a dose (the Pfizer vaccine, by comparison, costs $19.50).
AstraZeneca vaccine is being manufactured by Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker by volume. Covaxin is developed by Bharat Biotech, an Indian pharmaceutical company. Neither the AstraZeneca vaccine nor the Bharat Biotech vaccine requires ultracold storage. The second-largest population in the world has a long track record of mass-producing vaccines at affordable prices.
Serum Institute has been assigned as a major supplier to the Covax project, a global initiative backed by the World Health Organization to distribute vaccines equitably to poorer countries. Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive of Serum Institute, said the company would start delivering doses to Covax by the end of this month.
The world’s largest scale of immunisation is described by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “living proof of India’s talent.” However, in a televised address on Sunday, Modi urged Indians to remain vigilant.
India managed the towering logistical feat of distributing vaccine doses across the country with a synchronized national launch. Marking it as a hard-fought win, Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan declared: “We are winning the battle and eventually we will win this war against COVID-19 as we know our enemy, its numbers and its proper whereabouts and we are prepared to deal with any situation,” noted the Minister. He asserted that the situation in the country is improving. “Through a graded, pre-emptive and pro-active approach, the Central government is taking several steps along with the States/Union Territories for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19. These are being regularly reviewed and monitored at the highest level,” said the minister.
India’s health minister gave his assurances in this respect after visiting the Trauma Centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to take stock of COVID-19 preparedness. “The situation is improving in India as Hotspot Districts are moving towards becoming Non-Hotspot Districts,” said the Minister. Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of fatalities, followed by Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and Andhra Pradesh.
The first in line for vaccinations are 30 million health-care workers, soldiers and municipal employees. They’ll receive vaccinations free of cost. The next stage is more ambitious: It will target 270 million people over the age of 50 as well as those below 50 who have co-morbidities.
The Indian government has already made available sufficient quantities of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) at the State level. “Now we have around 106 manufacturing units capable of making them in the country itself to meet the increasing requirement in future. There are now 10 manufacturers of N-95 masks in the country.
Also, in collaboration with various research labs, the Indian government managed to boost the production of ventilators by domestic manufacturers. Orders have been placed for more than 59, 000 units through 9 manufacturers.
In the beginning, coronavirus cases in India happened due to the abroad connection rather than transmission within the country. The first three infection cases occurred on 30th January and 3rd February in Kerala as they returned from Wuhan China. Within a month later on 3rd March, two more cases were reported where one patient had a travel history from Italy while the other in Hyderabad visited Dubai.
India’s long battle against Coronavirus began when the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) issued travel advisory restrictions which were similar to the previous pandemics such as SARS, Ebola, and bubonic plague, including the imposition of self-quarantine rules for 14 days to all international travellers entering the country. Additionally, travel visas were restricted until 15th April for other countries and on 16th March 2020, MoHFW proposed various interventions such as social distancing of 1 m to avoid/decrease the rate and extent of disease transmission in a community which eventually leads to decreasing in a spread, morbidity, and mortality due to the disease.
On 22nd March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi encouraged people to follow 14 h of Janata curfew in India. On 24th March first phase of 21 days lockdown started in India.
Due to the growing number of infestation from COVID-19, on 14th April, Indian government declared an extended 2nd phase lockdown till 3rd May which was further lengthened till 17th May and later imposed till 31st May. To make the lockdown and social distancing effective, India also levied the quarantine law under the Epidemic Disease Act, 1897.
This 123-year-old legislation allows a state/country to inspect people traveling by railways, ships (air travel was not an option at that time when this law was created), and segregate suspects in hospitals, under temporary accommodations, or otherwise to prevent the spread of dangerous pandemic disease.
