Mumbai mulls importing COVID vaccine to keep third wave at bay

With the COVID vaccine shortage in India unlikely to get mitigated soon, Mumbai, one of the first cities in the country to get ravaged by the second COVID wave, is planning to invite bids from global manufacturers of COVID vaccine. If successful, the plan is to vaccinate residents of the financial city in three weeks to avert a third wave. 

Maharashtra tourism and environment minister Aaditya Thackeray, who is also the guardian minister of Mumbai Suburban, took to Twitter to confirm the plans. "Looking at the need for adequate vaccines to ensure that vaccination is swift and efficient, after discussing the issue with CM Uddhav Thackeray ji, as guardian minister of Mumbai, we have asked @mybmc to explore possibilities of global procurement of vaccines," Thackeray tweeted on Monday night. 

If this happens, Maharashtra can have a "roadmap" to vaccinate Mumbai in around three weeks, he told NDTV. The cost, he said, is "not a factor" and the state government is looking at "procurement at the earliest".

The Mumbai municipal corporation is in talks with the state government to allow it to invite bids from global manufacturers, Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said in an interview Monday. "The state government tender might be very huge, like 40 million, and no foreign supplier can match that kind of number, but if I just float 5 million vaccines, bids may come up from two-three companies," he was quoted in a Bloomberg report. "I am working on that and it's a matter of days that we will finalise something."

The city will also pay the firms extra to maintain a cold chain or other necessary logistics, Commissioner Chahal said.

Thackeray said the Maharashtra government was all positive about the three-week target because the vaccine hesitancy which was prevalent in the days after vaccines were launched, is quite gone.

In addition, he said that the Maharashtra government is working on an alternative to CoWin app to assist the less tech-savvy citizens in getting inoculated. "We are also working on a method to ensure that the non tech-savvy citizens and those who can’t operate the CoWin app with ease, and for their access to vaccines in time," he said in a series of tweets. 

Earlier, media reports had said that both Maharashtra and Rajasthan governments had started talks with foreign vaccine manufacturers to boost the speed of the inoculation drive in the 18-44 category. However, clearances from the Centre continue to remain a hurdle for the government to procure stock from outside the country, said officials. "If the government gives permission, we can procure Sputnik or other foreign vaccines for the citizens of our state. There are several approvals needed from the Centre,” Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope had said.