COVID-19: India pays big price for failure to order foreign vaccines

COVID-19
A medic administers a dose of COVID-19 vaccine to a young person, at a vaccination centre in New Delhi. PTI

New Delhi: India’s snub to global pharma giant Pfizer, which was the first firm to offer COVID-19 vaccine to the country, has proved much costly, according to scientific experts.

Ironically, facing a severe shortage, the Central government is now desperately seeking the vaccine from firms such as Pfizer, Moderna and others. 

India’s present predicament is also attributed to the government’s failure in ensuring the supply of the vaccine before launching the vaccination drive.

Misguided priorities

“While several other countries had started efforts to procure vaccines long back, India did not take any action,” says Dr Gagandeep Kang, who was a member of the expert committee on the pandemic appointed by the Supreme Court. At that time, Indian authorities felt that storage of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines would be a challenge as they had to be kept at extremely cold temperatures. As a result, India missed the chance to procure early the two vaccines having the best results in the world – Pfizer’s has 95 per cent efficiency and Moderna’s 94.1 per cent.

The Government had received Pfizer’s application for emergency trials in India before the country-based firms Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech made the move.

However, the Drugs Controller General of India delayed a decision on Pfizer’s application citing technical issues even as it gave clearance to the Indian vaccines which had not submitted their entire data.

Moreover, the authorities explained that their decision was to support the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) initiative. As a result, Pfizer withdrew its application.

Second wave

Soon, the second wave of the pandemic started wreaking havoc all over the country and the Central government landed in a deep vaccine crisis.

The acute shortage forced the government to announce that even foreign vaccines could be accepted without special permission. However, Pfizer made no move to offer its vaccine to India this time.

Faced with no other option, several state governments approached Pfizer directly, but the firm remained adamant that it would supply the vaccine only through the Central government.

Finally, the Union Health Ministry announced that discussions were taking place to procure the vaccine from abroad.

A long list of orders

India is yet to sign an agreement with either Pfizer or Moderna for the vaccine. However, many countries have placed orders for deliveries till 2023. While the two firms had started supplying their vaccines in December 2020, India has been left high and dry. 

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