Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday said that plans are afoot to procure 400-500 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to cover upto 25 crore people by July 2021. He said even as States have been advised to send details of priority population groups by October ends, frontline healthcare workers will be given topmost priority in Covid-19 immunisation.
“Our rough estimate will be to receive and utilise 400-500 million doses, covering approximately 20-25 crore people by July 2021. All this is still under various stages of finalisation. The Government is already looking at immunity data for covid-19 disease while States have been asked to provide the list of health workers to be given vaccines,” the minister said in his weekly ‘Sunday Samvad’ session.
“The list of frontline healthcare workers includes government sector as well as private sector doctors, nurses, paramedics, sanitary staff, Asha workers, surveillance officers and many other categories of frontline workers who are involved in facing, testing and treatment of patients,” the minister said.
The Centre has also asked the states to come up with a list of cold chain facilities for storage and distribution of vaccine doses down to the block level, he said. AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria had recently said that if everything goes as per plan, the vaccine will be available by January 2021.
“The Centre is also working on plans for building capacities in Human Resources, training, supervision etc on a massive scale and roughly estimates to receive and utilise 400-500 million doses covering approximately 20-25 crore people by July 2021. The Government is also keeping an eye on immunity data with regard to COVID-19 disease while finalizing these plans,” said the Minister.
Currently, three vaccines are undergoing human trials in India, with Serum Institute of India conducting a seamless phase 2/3 trial of the candidate jointly developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca plc. The other two vaccines, by Zydus Cadila and another jointly by Bharat Biotech International and Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology, are indigenously developed vaccines that are in a seamless phase 1/2 trial.
Apart from these three, Serum Institute is also expected to start the phase 2/3 trials of Novavax’s vaccine candidate in the second half of this month, while there are about half a dozen more indigenous vaccine in pre-clinical stage.
The Government is also keeping an eye on talks of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology for mass manufacturing of their Sputnik V vaccine by Indian companies.
Harsh Vardhan said that the government is open to introducing foreign-developed covid-19 vaccine in India, provided they prove they are safe and efficacious for the Indian population.
“All vaccines that are shown to be safe, immunogenic and efficacious in clinical trials outside India need to undergo bridging studies to prove their safety and immunogencity in the Indian population as well. Such studies are conducted with much smaller sample size and end quickly,” he said.