Vaccinating India Brilliantly

Context: India does not need better government but needed less government and better governance for efficiently carrying out the world’s largest vaccination drive.

Challenges and Problems in India’s Vaccination Drive

• Administering quick coverage of huge population: to protect 1.35 billion people by getting one million vaccinations in a week, and eight million in a month.
  • It will take 17 years to administer the vaccine to 800 million adults.
• Excessive government control: in terms of restrictions over time, individuals to be vaccinated, amount of dose to given (100 doses) each day, and vaccine delivery.
  • Under delivery of vaccine i.e hospitals complain of having the capacity to administer 500 and 1,000 vaccines a day, and being given only 200.
  • Restricted testing to only symptomatic patients with all testing done by the government only (prevented private agencies from doing testing).
• Minute organisation and detailed control: is not feasible for India with more health workers than the population of Israel (population 9 million) and Singapore (population 6 million).
  • Some leaders (US, Brazil,) abdicated responsibility, while others ( Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore) responded quickly and effectively.

Opportunities

• Leading vaccine manufacturers: Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech has millions of vaccines in stock and have additional candidates, both licensed and homegrown.
• Dr. Reddy´s Laboratories & Hetero Pharmaceuticals are in final stages of testing Sputnik V vaccine.
• Biological E has licensed the Johnson and Johnson single-dose vaccine, where US approval is imminent.
• Zydus Cadila and Gennova Biopharmaceuticals have their vaccines under development.
• Huge vaccine availability: as the new vaccines get approvals, the choice and availability will only grow.
• Cheapest and efficient testing set up

Way Forward: Having set the rules, the state must step out of the way, and encourage the private sector to-

• Pay and organise to vaccinate: their own staff and families as private hospitals could administer 1 million vaccines each day if freed to buy vaccines and sell to people who want them.
• Get together with NGOs to help vaccinate rest of the city with the job of vaccinating millions a day.
• For example, In Pune, the president of the Mahratta Chamber has taken the challenge of vaccinating the entire adult population of 5 million in one month.
• Conduct testing: private laboratories ramped up capacity as soon as restrictions were removed.
• For example, In Pune, an RTPCR test is available for under ? 1,000 (against ? 25,000 of U.K with result after three days) and gives results on mobile within four hours.

Conclusion: Government must ensure decentralised approach (not micromanaged) with trust in institutions (like hospitals, NGOs, industry, schools, colleges) and the private sector based on Ronald Reagan saying that “I´m from the government and I´m here to help”.