Public health practitioners are calling for the Covid-19 vaccination to be provided free of charge and vaccine approvals to be hastened in India.
Dr Amit Sharma of the National Institute of Malaria Research, Delhi, India, and colleagues believe these measures are necessary in order to protect India’s 1.3 billion population.
Currently the country is in its second wave of Covid-19 and for a period more than 300,000 cases were reported daily. There are shortages of medicines, oxygen, hospital beds and health care workers to deal with severe cases, the experts say.
Although three vaccines have got emergency authorisation, and two have been deployed since January, the roll-out is slow and only around 3% of the population is fully immunised.
Without access to more vaccine types, the country will not meet its target to vaccinate around one billion people by the end of the year, warn the authors.
In BMJ Global Health today (2 June), they write: "There is an urgent need to enhance vaccine production to cover India’s 1.3 billion population. Some urgent measures include supplemental vaccine options, expedited approvals of foreign vaccines, making vaccines free for all, prioritising vulnerable groups, planning robust deployment and overcoming vaccine hesitancy."
They add that there is also a need for sustained funding for research and development on vaccines and drugs against Covid-19 "to ensure the country against new challenges that stem from more infectious viral variants".
"The funding pledged by the government is far from adequate,” warn the authors. India needs to "spur the bureaucratic machinery so that vaccine equity can be achieved in a very short span of time", they urge.
Rahi, M. and Sharma, A. The COVID-19 vaccination programme in India needs a shot in the arm, urgently and sustainably. BMJ Global Health 2 June 2021; doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006324
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