Huge Policy Change of Vaccine Administration in India??

Triggered by the highly inflaming second wave of Covid-19 virus infection spread, India has announced huge change in their policy of administering Covid 19 Vaccines by permitting individual state authorities to directly buy vaccines from various manufacturing companies and thereby cutting the free-vaccine policy. India who are the second largest population on the planet, is currently undergoing heavy spread (circa 400,000 reported infections per day with around 4,000 casualties per day) of the deadly virus and the government is forced to implement strict measures in order to control it.

Major cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Cochin, Lucknow, Ajmer, Ranchi have already declared full or partial lockdowns in order to curb the spread. The test positivity of some the areas are as high as 50%. A Local news channel from the southern city, Cochin has quoted the District administration head as “strict measures are taken for the safety and security of the people. From 3rd May 2021 onwards strict restrictions, almost equivalent to lockdown has been declared. Heavy infected areas are classified as containment zones and are under complete lock down. Some area’s situation is alarming as the test positivity is more than 50%. However, the vaccine shortage is one of the hurdles and we have urged the central government to provide more dosages. Meantime, the state government has decided to use the Russian made Sputnik also in addition to the Indian made Astra Zenecca and Covaxine.”

Meanwhile, huge campaigns were going on in the Social media against the exporting of Indian made vaccines and the Central Government decision to use other vaccines and to import more variants is to be read along with it.

What Next for Countries without vaccine production centers??

It is evident that the countries who doesn’t produce vaccine has to wait a bit more. Being the major vaccine producers in the world, India’s decision to temporarily stop the export of vaccine will definitely affect these countries including Kenya. However, it is time to think about the alternatives.