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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Vaccines: The Centre and states should divide tasks -Arjun Jayadev & Avinash Tripathi

-Hindustan Times

A rapid and universal vaccination programme is essential to control a surge of this magnitude and time is of the essence — for the virus is not standing still

The second wave of Covid-19 is overwhelming India. The official death toll is already inching towards 250,000, but this is almost surely a vast underestimate, as the virus sweeps through rural India and kills many whose deaths will never be captured in official data or in media reports. A rapid and universal vaccination programme is essential to control a surge of this magnitude and time is of the essence — for the virus is not standing still.

At this time, the blunt truth is that India has an inadequacy of vaccines. In December, one of us, in an article published in The New York Times, warned that the approval of vaccines may not be the beginning of the end, but the beginning of an endless wait. Unfortunately, the warning has materialised, with tragic consequences.

Vaccine procurement and ramping up of production are essential. Unfortunately, this cannot be “left to the market”. Price signals cannot elicit a rapid supply response in the short-run due to capacity constraints on the one hand, and high barriers to entry on the other. Vaccines are being produced today under exclusive vendor licensing and the market is a seller’s market. What is needed, therefore, is to alter this situation.

One step forward would be to use the flexibility that the World Trade Organization provides, and issue compulsory licences for vaccines. While that will be helpful, to allow for additional capacity to be built, more needs to be done. For vaccine production, after intellectual property rights considerations, there are other additional technological and regulatory complexities that India should be working hard to resolve.

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