Modi govt counters 'blatant lies' on Covid-19 vaccine campaign; Pfizer vaccine under consideration

According to the statement, the Centre has engaged continuously with all the major international vaccine manufacturers right from mid-2020

The Union government on Thursday firmly denied what it described as "distorted statements, half truths and blatant lies" on India's ongoing Covid-19 vaccination programme that received flak because of its slackening pace and shortage of vaccine that has forced the States to shut down many of their vaccination centres.

NITI Ayog member Vinod Paul who chairs the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 also said that the Centre was examining Pfizer’s proposal of supplying 50 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccines, but a decision would be taken on “merit and keeping the larger interest of people in the mind.”

The government, Paul said, was in touch with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson since mid-2020, but these companies "have their own priorities, game plans and compulsions in allocating finite stocks."

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With Pfizer now showing an inclination of supplying some doses, the government was examining the multinational’s request to grant indemnity against its liabilities. The company has made such a request to every country where its vaccines are being used.

The US pharma giant has indicated availability of 50 million vaccine doses -- 10 million in July, 10 million in August, 20 million in September and 10 million in October -- for supply to India in 2021. The company also made it clear that it would deal only with the Centre and not with individual states or private hospitals.

In a detailed statement that counters a barrage of criticism on poor execution of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, Paul blamed the states for their demands to open up the vaccination despite their failure to achieve good coverage of healthcare workers and frontline workers even after three months.

“The states very well knew the production capacity in the country and what the difficulties are in procuring vaccines directly from abroad. (Still) the states, which had not even achieved good coverage of healthcare workers and frontline workers in three months, wanted to open up the process of vaccination and wanted more decentralisation,” he said.

Even after four months, only 67 lakh healthcare workers and 84 lakh frontline staff received two doses of the vaccine as on Thursday.

“Health is a state subject and the liberalised vaccine policy was a result of the incessant requests being made by the states to give them more power. The fact that global tenders have not given any results only reaffirms what we have been telling the states from day one: that vaccines are in short supply in the world and it is not easy to procure them at short notice.”

On ramping up the production at Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, he said the two vaccine manufacturing companies would augment their production up to 110 million and 100 million doses per month, respectively by October. Additionally, 40 million doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin would also be manufactured at four public sector units by December as India seeks to arrange more than two billion doses by the end of 2021.