Scale It Up, Roll It Out

Context: India’s vaccination drive must be expansive, equitable and steady, as issues of availability, trained manpower and vaccine centres are addressed.

Current approach to Covid vaccination in India: The central government has adopted a phased approach

• Vaccinating first the at-high-risk populations, then the 60-plus, and from April onwards, everyone over the age of 45 years is eligible.
• The digital platform, CoWIN, has been set up to register beneficiaries for the vaccine at the front end and for planning, implementation, and monitoring of the vaccination drive at the backend.

Three pillars of vaccination scale-up strategy:

• Availability (vaccine supply): While India is the global hub of vaccine production, still, vaccine production is a complex process and manufacturing capacity cannot be created in a short timeframe.
  • Adherence to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP): GMP for biological and pharmaceutical products have to be followed thoroughly by all manufacturers. 
• Deploy people (trained vaccinators): Need to deploy sufficient trained vaccinators.
  • Training must cover a wide range of aspects — including knowledge on storage, handling, delivery, and waste management of COVID-19 vaccines; organizing COVID-19 vaccination sessions and Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) monitoring.
  • Training health workers is also critical to address vaccine hesitancy and build public trust. 
• Places (vaccination centres): Need of accessible and acceptable centres for people.
  • Centres need to have adequate space: for mandatory monitoring for any adverse events immediately following vaccination. 

Way forward:

• Ensure vaccine equity: Prioritize vulnerable populations and consider opportunities to vaccinate asymptomatic spreaders for early vaccination.
• Need of active collaboration with the private sector: With doctors, nurses, and technicians from private facilities to meet vaccination needs.
• Adopt “cafeteria approach”: For bringing more affordable, global vaccine alternatives to market while simultaneously stimulating indigenous production. 
• Adherence to COVID-appropriate behaviour: As the second wave of the pandemic unfolds, there is a need to emphasize continuously testing and tracking alongside vaccination.