On Tuesday, the Health Ministry explained the recommendations of the National Expert Group of Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC), which prioritised COVID-19 vaccine delivery for one crore healthcare workers, two crore members of the armed forces and police, and 27 crore of vulnerable populations.
As per NEGVAC’s recommendations on prioritised population groups, the COVID-19 vaccine should be made available for healthcare providers and workers in healthcare settings, personnel from state and central police, armed forces, home guards, civil defence and disaster management volunteers and municipal workers, persons above 50 years and persons below 50 who have associated comorbidities.
There are around 2.39 lakh vaccinators (auxiliary nurse midwife-ANM) across the country, of whom just 1.54 lakh need to be used for COVID-19 vaccination—the ministry stressing that the vaccination drive must have minimal impact on routine health services including routine administration.
In the briefing on Tuesday, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, “The PM has also personally interacted with and encouraged all vaccine manufacturers and scientists.” He added, “Five of them, namely Covishield manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, Covaxin manufactured by Bharat Biotech, ZyCoV-D manufactured by Zydus Cadila, Sputnik V which is being manufactured by Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and NVX-CoV2373 which is another vaccine by SII are in various stages of Clinical Trial. Out of these, Covishield and Covaxin have also applied for Emergency Use Authorization.”
“This apart, a Recombinant Protein Antigen based vaccine by Biological E Ltd, mRNA based HGCO 19 vaccine by Genova, Pune; and an Inactivated rabies vector platform vaccine by Bharat Biotech are in various stages of pre-clinical trials. The vaccine requires 2-3 doses in intervals of 3 to 4 weeks,” further informed the Health Secretary. He, however, also cautioned that precautions must be undertaken even after vaccination.
Bhushan said the current cold chain system consists of over 85,000 functional equipment for storage of vaccines at nearly 29,000 cold chain points across the country.
“We all know that vaccines are temperature sensitive and need to be stored in specific temperatures. Presently, the cold chain system consists of 85,634 functional equipment which include deep freezers, walk-in coolers, walk-in refrigerators, passive devices which do not require electricity like ice boxes etc, for storage of vaccines at about 28,947 cold chain points across the country. They are used in the health ministry's universal immunisation process (UIP). The current cold chain system is capable of storing additional quantity of COVID-19 vaccine required for first 3 crore i.e. Health Care Workers and Front Line Workers," he said.
Interestingly, a day earlier, Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla told the Financial Times that a vaccine could be made available for private purchase by March or April of 2021. While SII has a deal to supply the government with the necessary number of vaccines, it can make 20-30 million doses available for private purchase, Poonawalla told the British financial newspaper.
With inputs from PTI
