Corbevax for 12-14 year-olds: arbitrary decision-making on Vaccines continues in India

All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) Statement

 click here to get the pdf of the statement 

 

 

click here to get the pdf of the press release

 

 

Corbevax for 12-14 year-olds: arbitrary decision-making on Vaccines continues in India

 

22 Mar 2022

             The Union Health Ministry announced through a press release on March 14, 2022 that vaccinations against Covid-19 for children in the age group of 12 to 14 years would start from March 16, 2022 using the Corbevax vaccine manufactured in India by Biological E. Limited, Hyderabad, with license from BCM Ventures, USA, set up by the vaccine developer Texas Children’s Hospital. Corbevax is a protein subunit vaccine where the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is directly injected with stabilising chemicals and adjuvants in order to raise antibody levels in the recipient. This is different from Covaxin which uses full inactivated virus or Covishield which uses an adenoviral viral vector to introduce the DNA coding for the spike protein into cells. The vaccine is open-source and offered to manufacturers without patent but with a small fee for BCM. Government is being charged Rs.145 per dose whereas Rs.990 would be charged by private hospitals. While Corbevax undoubtedly expands the basket of vaccines available in India to combat the pandemic, the modalities of its approval, deployment and related decision-making processes raise many disturbing and recurring questions which have plagued India’s vaccine policies and the integrity of its regulatory institutions and mechanisms.

The Government statement said the decision to initiate vaccinations for the 12-14 years cohort was taken “after due deliberations with scientific bodies.” However, it is known that the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) was not consulted, nor was any recommendation obtained from the National Expert Group on Vaccination Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC) either regarding vaccination for this age-group nor for deployment of Corbevax as the sole vaccine for this cohort.  It appears that the Government itself does not have confidence in its own expert bodies, which calls into question the very credibility of the decisions being made. Unfortunately, it is precisely such non-transparent decision-making which contributes to vaccine hesitancy, as had happened earlier with Covaxin for similar reasons.  It may be noted that, once again, approvals in India for Corbevax for this age group have been granted without peer reviewed or even pre-published data and clinical trial data pertaining to this age group is not available in the public domain, whereas approval for adults were granted based on interim trial results. The difficulties and delays faced by Covaxin in obtaining WHO approval due to inadequate data are well-known, as are the world body’s statement that it could not be expected to “cut corners” in well-established approval procedures. The Government risks repetition of this international embarrassment by once again resorting to short-cuts in India’s domestic scientific approvals and regulatory systems.

India’s vaccine policy has been characterized by poor planning, arbitrary and non-transparent decision-making based on extraneous considerations rather than scientific evidence. The Government is arbitrarily dividing up the market amongst different vaccine manufacturers by approving only specific vaccines for different age-groups, rather than adopting a more equitable public vaccination programme. As a consequence, vaccine production and exports have not kept pace with requirement and demand despite tall claims of being the “vaccine capital of the world,” and this has in turn impacted on vaccine deployment strategies and choices.

AIPSN calls upon the government to strictly follow laid-down regulatory procedures and scrutiny by scientific and expert bodies, then formulate and implement evidence-based policies with transparent decision-making rationale. Only this will restore public confidence in India’s vaccination policy and obviate vaccine hesitancy.

 

For clarifications contact:

V.R. Raman 9717107878 D. Raghunandan 9810098621; T. Sundararaman 9987438253

P.Rajamanickam, General Secretary, AIPSN gsaipsn@gmail.com, 9442915101 @gsaipsn

 

Lesson for Right To Health agenda : Learning From TamilNadu’s response to Covid19 pandemic

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Read the Executive Summary in Tamil

 

Cover of book

Details of authors, publishers

WHO refusal of Emergency Use Approval for Covaxin

click here to read pdf of AIPSN Statement of 29 Sept 2021

click here to read the Press Release of the AIPSN Statement

WHO refusal of Emergency Use Approval for Covaxin

          All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) notes with sorrow and grave concern that the World Health Organization (WHO) has not granted Emergency Use Listing (EUL) for ICMR-Bharat Biotech’s (BB) Covaxin vaccine, but has asked BB for more technical details. This is a serious setback for Covaxin and for India’s vaccination programme in the country, and a blow to India’s plans to distribute vaccines to other countries. Many Indians traveling abroad, especially students, who took Covaxin, are already finding it difficult to obtain visas or entry into other countries which generally recognize only WHO-approved vaccines. This sorry state of affairs will continue as long as there is no public accountability, transparency along with scientific rigour.

Covaxin will also once again face vaccine hesitancy in India as it did during the earlier controversial approvals process. AIPSN had earlier urged the public disclosure of trial data and now mourns the serious damage done to the reputation of India by this flawed application to WHO regulators, which has also besmirched the standing of Indian science and regulatory systems, which will now come under heightened international scrutiny and suspicion.

Unfortunately, this was entirely foreseeable. BB has played ducks-and-drakes with regard to transparency of clinical trials data and respect for regulatory processes and institutions. In December 2020/January 2021, BB applied to the Indian regulator, DCGI for EUA with grossly inadequate data from clinical trials inviting rejection, followed by behind-the-scenes arm-twisting by the Union Government resulting in grant of EUA. More detailed results of Phase-3 clinical trials were then released by BB in installments, interim results two months later and complete trial data in June 2021. Despite much criticism from scientists and others in India, including by AIPSN, BB has regrettably not published these results in a peer-reviewed journal even to date, but has only posted a pre-publication paper. BB could get away with all this because of the open backing of the Union Government which echoed all excuses and justifications put forward by BB, such as saying in June 2021 that BB would publish results in a few weeks, and even recently announced that it was expecting WHO approval soon.  Criticism of this chain of events, and calls for greater transparency on clinical trial data by BB and also by its governmental partner ICMR, in the interests of Indian science and its international reputation, were attacked by the Government as anti-national and undermining the prestige of India and its scientists. The chickens have come home to roost with WHO’s refusal of EUL for Covaxin.

Compounding these errors of judgment by the Government and by DCGI bending to its will, India looks set to repeat these blunders in the approvals process for Zydus Cadilla’s ZyCov-D 3-dose Covid vaccine for those 12 years or older. Zydus had applied for EUA on 1st July 2021 based on interim data and obtained it on 20th August. However, this interim data has not been made public or published anywhere, even in pre-print form, raising the same concerns and criticisms as with Covaxin. Covaxin was one of the first Covid vaccines developed by a middle-income, and would have indeed boosted India’s prestige if it had obtained approvals in India and abroad with transparent and published peer-reviewed data. ZyCov-D too would similarly have enhanced India’s image as the only one of just 11 DNA-based vaccine candidates worldwide. Regrettably, the powers that be seem to have decided to follow a non-transparent government-ordered vaccine approval process that achieves precisely the opposite. As is said history repeats itself “First as tragedy and second time as farce”.

All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) urges the Government of India, its concerned ministries, departments, institutions and authorities of the need to adhere to scientific standards for conduct and analysis of clinical trial results, publication of results as peer-reviewed articles and complete transparency. Regulatory agencies should also assert their independence from both government and corporate interests, and make judgments based on scientific analysis. Vaccine producers must build transparency in this regard, while fulfilling their responsibilities and accountability. We need to ensure that urgent approval of vaccines, publication of clinical trial data and the safety and efficacy of the vaccine all receive equal and due importance.

 

For clarifications contact:

P.Rajamanickam, General Secretary, AIPSN

gsaipsn@gmail.com, 9442915101 @gsaipsn

National Scientific Temper Day NSTD 2021

Read the NSTD appeal in

english, hindi, bengali, odiya, assamese, marathi, kannada, telegu, malayalam, tamil

Visit https://aipsn.in to read the appeal and endorse or see the signatories

AIPSN Press Release

click here to get the AIPSN Press Release pdf 

National Scientific temper day (NSTD) on 20th August, 2021

            All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN), comprising of 40 member organisations, has been observing 20th August as the National Scientific Temper Day (NSTD) in the memory of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, who was assassinated on 20th August 2013. Campaigns have been launched every year along with fraternal organisations and movements throughout the country. This year the campaign focuses on the need for Scientific Temper to fight Covid and the need to oppose promotion of Astrology by Governmental efforts.  So far almost all the states of India and nearly 200 districts started to observe this day through webinars, outdoor programmes, poster rally in social media, and mass meetings obeying Covid rule. As part of the NSTD observance, signature campaigns both online (https://aipsn.in) and offline in local languages in States have involved thousands of activists, scientists and educationists. A twitter campaign was also undertaken on 20th with the hashtag #NSTD2021 #LongLiveDabholkar. This year NSTD 2021 was observed by conducting two all India level Webinars to  understand the issues by state committees; all India  webinars focusing on women and Youths  on scientific temper; release of all India statement in nearly 8 languages; web based signature campaign currently with more than 1500 signatures; preparation of posters in nearly 10 languages for social media campaign in all states; state level webinars in nearly 20 states; physical meeting of NSTD campaign in 200 districts; demands of different states to enact anti superstition bill; miracle explanation and pledge taking on the 51 A (h) part of our constitution in all branches of PSM; articles highlighting NSTD in local dailies in different states were the highlights of NSTD-2021.

All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN) and its constituent bodies note with concern the recent announcement by IGNOU to start ‘MA-Jyotish’ course from the current academic year. We also note similar courses have been running in at least a handful more public funded universities. We note that authorities in these universities are defending such courses by claiming that these courses fulfill the NEP 2020 recommendation of introduction of ‘Indian Knowledge Systems’ in curriculum at all stages.

India has a rich tradition of knowledge generation in multiple fields including astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy and philosophy. The tree of modern science is watered by all great cultures of the past in different ways and in different eras. Some of the Indian contributions to this collective knowledge are undeniably significant and they will occupy a crucial part in any wholesome learning of science.

Astrological predictions have been invariably shown to fail in any controlled statistical test. There is no scientific basis for believing that planets have any meaningful effect on the human body. The astrological principle that the effect of planets would vary based on your birth chart even defies plain logic.  Introducing such an unproven and illogical field as a teaching course by IGNOU is promoting superstition by governmental effort. Further, its introduction goes against Article 51A (h) of the Indian Constitution which stipulates that it is the fundamental duty of every Indian citizen to adhere to scientific temper. Promoting scientific temper, which is a fundamental duty for each one of us, requires us to oppose the promotion of pseudoscience, especially by governmental bodies.

We express our great concern in regard to the encouragement and promotion of fake data, pseudoscience and irresponsible decisions by the Central and some state governments, on the one hand which have contributed to the spread of the pandemic, and the neglect of a planned response based on scientific policy on the other. Covid cannot be fought without scientific temper. Fighting Covid scientifically requires the reversal of policies promoting private health care for profit leading to the neglect and decline of effective public healthcare systems in most states of India.  Fighting Covid requires effective implementation of a national policy for universal free vaccination on a crash basis. It requires planning based on honest data collection. While wasting huge sums in self advertisement on free vaccination, the Central government and several state governments are failing in practice at the ground level to ensure adequate supplies of vaccines, oxygen and even the proper disposal of the dead bodies of those who succumbed to Covid. Media organizations reporting accurately the situation on the ground are being systematically targeted and sought to be silenced by the misuse of the state apparatus. Thus the government itself is promoting fake data and actively trying to suppress the truth.

We appeal to all citizens, mass organizations and educational institutions to participate in the National Scientific Temper Day (NSTD) observances for August 20th for promoting scientific temper in these challenging times and to raise our voices against the brutal killing of Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Lankesh and condemn the threatening of intellectuals for their writings or holding seminars.

The NSTD 2021 campaign by AIPSN and fraternal organisations have demanded:

  1. Astrology (i.e. predictive part of Jyotishastra) related courses should be discontinued from every public funded university. Instead of that we demand the introduction of Astronomy in Indian universities.
  2. Reversal of privatization policies and restoration of scientific policy for ensuring good quality public health care as a universal right.
  3. The government stops its attacks on media reporting honestly on the Covid situation.
  4. Respect be shown to our constitutional article 51a(h) for actively promoting scientific temper at a mass level in order to effectively combat and defeat the Covid pandemic.
  5. An atmosphere of tolerance, debate and dissent which helps science and scientific temper to flourish.
  6. Culprits involved in the assassination of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh are punished.

 

 

For clarifications contact:

P.Rajamanickam, General Secretary, AIPSN

gsaipsn@gmail.com, 9442915101 @gsaipsn

Urgently Expand Public and Private Sector Production along with related R&D to meet India’s Vaccine Requirements: AIPSN Statement endorsed by Scientists, Academics, Doctors

All India Peoples’ Science network (AIPSN)

27 May 2021

 click here to see the pdf with endorsements received till 31May 

click here to see the letters in EPW Vol. 56, Issue No. 23, 05 Jun, 2021 carrying the endorsement

Urgently Expand Public and Private Sector Production along with related R&D

to meet India’s Vaccine Requirements

 Need for New Strategies

With the present Indian population of over 130 crores, the number of vaccines required to immunise the entire population would be about 310 crore doses (3.1 billion doses)  or 218.5 crore doses for the 18+ adult population, allowing about 15% process losses. This is not an easy task.  However,  the Indian people need to know why India, a pioneer in large-scale vaccine production even before the current pandemic and a major exporter of vaccines, has to rely on just two private domestic manufacturers, Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech, to produce Covid-19 vaccines, a constraint that is painfully obvious today.

India, now, has a number of public and private sector units that can make a contribution to the expansion of local production of vaccines. Presently two vaccines namely COVISHIELD of Serum Research Institute (SII), Pune and COVAXIN of Bharat Biotech (BB), Hyderabad are available for supply in India. Technology for COVAXIN is fully home grown, through collaboration between BB and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), a public sector R&D institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), itself an agency of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The central government is therefore entitled to make use of march-in-rights available to supporting government entities, as tacitly accepted by BB in extending technology transfer to 3 public-sector vaccine Units.

Up to the 2000s, 80% of India’s vaccines for the Universal Immunization Programme were sourced from the public sector. Today, 90% are sourced from the private sector, that too at a higher cost. Brazil, Cuba and China are using public sector companies and institutes to undertake integrated R&D and production operations to vaccinate their populations and export to developing countries to meet their requirements. In contrast, India has neglected its public sector units. India has a large number of a few decades old facilities as well as new facilities equipped with appropriate modern infrastructure. The central and state governments should be making full use of all these facilities to expand local production of COVID vaccines.  Presently India has eleven public sector units. Some are almost ready to go into production. The government has taken some initial steps in the direction of using a few selected units. Integrated Vaccine Complex at Chengalpattu, whose construction was completed as recently as 2016, needs just one hundred crores and some handholding to start the domestic production of COVID vaccines.

There are a number of private sector units which can also contribute to the domestic production of COVID vaccines, , such as Biological E.,  Hyderabad, Panacea Biotech,  Solan etc. In addition to vaccine manufacturing companies, there are also companies that manufacture biologics that have the capacity to be repurposed for manufacture of vaccines. Already, Dr. Reddy’s Lab and at least five biologics have teamed up with Russia to procure the Sputnik-V Vaccines in the country. In all, there are close to thirty units which can be involved in the production of COVID vaccines. Such expanded manufacture in India would enable meeting domestic requirements as well as international obligations to which India, in particular SII, is committed having also accepted advance payments. Procurement of already approved vaccines from abroad by private sector units is also an option.

While the private sector is itself getting ample albeit highly belated funding from the government, the public sector is still not getting requisite support. Only recently some relatively small government grants have been given for manufacture of Covaxin under license to state owned companies such as Indian Immunologicals Ltd. Hyderabad, Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation Ltd, Bulandhshahar, to and Haffkine Institute, a Maharashtra state PSU as called for by its Chief Minister. SII cannot by itself transfer technologies since it is itself making Covishield under license from AstraZeneca, it can certainly be nudged to sub-contract work to other Units. Both SII and Bharat Biotech could be appropriately persuaded to handhold these other units as one way of paying back their own long-standing obligations to the public sector and the Indian state.

Specific suggestions for the government to announce a policy to urgently ramp up domestic production of vaccines and improve related R&D are as follows:

  1. The existing public sector undertakings and state owned enterprises be revived and assisted to ramp up vaccine production.
  2. The use of the Integrated Vaccine Complex at Chengalpattu be handed over to TamilNadu Government with clear provisions allowing the state governments, public sector undertakings and state owned enterprises for contractual manufacturing of Covid vaccines using the facility.
  3. Compulsory licenses or appropriate legislation be issued where required to enable interested parties for production of COVID 19 vaccines.
  4. The conventionally used march-in-rights available to the Govt of India/ICMR be used to ensure technology transfer and handholding by Bharat Biotech to PSUs, SOEs and other Units to enable them produce vaccines for domestic use.
  5. Indian companies that are planning to manufacture Sputnik V be assisted, as required, for scaling up.
  6. SII, AstraZeneca and Novavax be persuaded to expand manufacturing in India through joint ventures or other collaborations with suitable public and private sector entities both for domestic use and export especially for the Covax facility.
  7. Research on new vaccine development strategies and development of multiple vaccines be enabled and encouraged across research laboratories, public sector and private sector institutions. Genomic surveillance be increased appreciably and linked to viral efficacy and epidemiological studies, so that vaccines are constantly checked for efficacy against variants of concern enabling collaborative modification across manufacturers, as required, especially in view of emerging variants and for different demographics such as children.

We the following scientists, academicians, doctors endorse the above statement:

(endorsements received till 31 May 2021)

1         Gagandeep Kang Professor
2         Shahid Jameel Director, Trivedi School of Biosciences, Ashoka University
3         T. Sundararaman Global Coordinator, Peoples Health Movement
4         Satyajit Rath Visiting Faculty, IISER Pune
5         Vineeta Bal Staff Scientist (Retired), National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi
6         T R Govindarajan Professor (Retd) IMSc
7         Tejinder Pal Singh Professor, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
8         LS Shashidhara Professor
9         Gautam Menon Professor,  Ashoka University
10     Madan Rao Professor, NCBS, Bangalore
11     Partha Majumder National Science Chair, Natl Inst of Biomedical Genomics
12     Sorab Dalal Academic
13     John Kurien Azim Premji University
14     Sheena Jain Former Pofessor Jamia Millia University
15     R Ramanujam Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai
16     Ram Ramaswamy Visiting Professor, IIT Delhi
17     Imrana Qadeer retired Professor (Public Health)
18     G Rajasekaran Professor Emeritus
19     N. Mani Professor and Head Department of Economics Erode Arts and Science College Erode Tamil Nadu
20     D.Raghunandan Delhi Science Forum
21     Ponniah Rajamanickam Rtd. Associate Professor & AIPSN
22     B.Parthasarathy General Secretary– All India Federation of Retired University and College Teachers’ Organisations
23     Y. Srinivas Rao Associate professor
24     A.P.Balachandran Syracuse University
25     H. Shakila Professor and Head
26     TS Ganesan Professor Medical Oncology
27     Mundur V N Murthy Professor (Retd), The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai
28     R Shankar Honorary Professor, IMSc
29     Usha Ramakrishnan Retired professor, ex MKU
30     Reeteka Sud NIMHANS
31     Ramesh Singh Sheoran Convenor, Gurgaon water forum
32     Surinder Kumar Professor
33     Dhruv Raina JNU
34     Kesab Bhattacharya Professor
35     Rakesh Prasad Founder BallotboxIndia.com, Director Gnovations Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
36     Thirunavukkarasu Asst.professor of microbiology
37     Surendra Ghaskadbi Biologist
38     G Velmurugan Scientist, KMCH Research Foundation, Coimbatore
39     Saumyen Guha Professor, IIT Kanpur
40     RAMAN KUMAR RANA Biochemist
41     Ramasundaram.S Associate Prof, Unit Secretary, Tamil Nadu Science Forum, Madurai
42     Chitra.N Associate Professor of Microbiology
43     V. Makeshkumar Technical Lead – Regulatory Affairs, Engineering Research and Development (R & D) Services
44     Prabir Purkayastha President, Free Software Movement
45     K K Natarajan Retired Professor
46     S. Krishnaswamy Retd Senior Professor, ex Madurai Kamaraj University
47     K V Subrahmanyam Professor, Chennai Mathematical Institute
48     R Geeta Retired from University of Delhi
49     GK Marita Professor in Physiology ,GSL Medical College Rajahmundry Andhra
50     Sadasivam, K Associate Professor
51     Sitabhra Sinha Professor, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai
52     Venkatesh Raman Professor, IMSc Chennai
53     Dev Desai ANHAD
54     Soma Marla Principal scientist, Genomics division ICAR NBPGR New Delhi
55     V.RAVI Associate professor, government arts college for men, krishnagiri
56     K.Durga Principal Scientist,  Genetics, ICAR IARI, New Delhi
57     S.R. Venkateswaran Orthopedic surgeon
58     Ranbir singh dahiya President haryana gyan vigyan samiti haryana
59     Sellan M Associate professor
60     Senthamil selvan state Ec member, Tamil nadu Science Forum
61     Kanagarajan Vice-president
62     R. Vivekaanandhan Professor (rtd.)
63     D. Narasimhan Associate Professor (Retd.)
64     R. Kavitha Assistant professor & Head
65     SHANMUGAM N Assistant Professor
66     R chandran Principal
67     G.Suresh kumar Associate Professor and MUTA
68     Shanmugam Veeramani  Assistant professor
69     Ravisankar Retired professor of Buisiness Administration
70     J.Kalyana sundari Retired deputy director of agriculture
71     Rajendra Prasad Former Advisor & Head, International Scientific Affairs, CSIR, New Delhi
72     S.Saraniya Medical doctor
73     Sunita Sheel Bandewar Exe Director, Health, Ethics and Law Institute of FMES
74     Ashok Pandey Public Health Research Society Nepal
75     S.Chatterjee Scientist (Retd) , Formerly, Indian Institute of Astrophysics
76     Aurnab Ghose Academic
77     SUJOY CHAKRABORTY Senior Science Journalist. ABP Digital Media
78     Ravinder Banyal Scientist
79     Amit Kumar Mandal Assistant Professor, Raiganj University
80     Chandan K Sen Distinguished Professor & Director
81     Prabir KC Independent Health Consultant
82     R.Chandramohan RETD Principal
83     Sudha N Independent Researcher & Activist
84     Arup Kumar Chattopadhyay Professor of Economics, University of Burdwan
85     Mahalaya Chatterjee Professor, Calcutta University
86     Aniruddha Pramanik Professor, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya
87     Sedhu Bharath. S Dentist
88     Birat Raja padhan Pruthibi science club
89     Amit Misra Chief Scientist, CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute
90     S Janakarajan Professor
91     Samuel Asir Raj Professor, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli
92     Hasham Shafi Senior Research Fellow, CSIR-central drug research institute
93     Rajiv Gupta Former professor of Sociology University of Rajasthan Jaipur
94     Jayashree Ramadas Professor (retired)
95     Reena Bharti CSIR-SRF
96     G C Manoharan Retired Professor
97     Venkat Nadella PostDoc Policy Research Fellow, Indian Institute of Science
98     Moumita Koley Policy post doctoral fellow
99     Ashok Jain Former CSIR NISTADS
100 Debjani Sengupta Retd. Professor
101 Ahmar Raza Retired Scientist
102 Ramesh Chander Retired Principal / District Secretary , Haryana Gyan Vigyan Samiti, Hisar , Haryana
103 S.Ramaswamy Retired Professor
104 Suresh Teaching  Assistant
105 Kamala menon Delhi science forum   Secretary
106 Archana Prasad Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
107 Asha Saxena Ahmad Eye Specialist
108 C P Geevan Independent Researcher
109 Dr K J Joseph Director GIFT
110 Rony Thomas Rajan Assistant professor
111 Mohanakumar Professor
112 S. Akshay Faculty, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
113 Sedhu bharath. S Dentist
114 Jins Varkey Assistant Professor
115 Visweswaran Retd.Banker
116 Indranil OP Jindal Global University
117 Sundarbabu Retired Professor
118 K J Joy Senior Fellow, SOPPECOM
119 PrasadA Rao Chairman SARASIJAM Technologies
120 Drraj Singhal Chief Technical officer
121 Rao Gummadi IT Security Audit
122 Biju IK Member, Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishath
123 Sanat Phatak KEM hospital research centre
124 Harsha Merchant Member ISSA
125 Sulakshana Nandi Public Health Resource Network Chhattisgarh
126 Tapan Saha Retired Senior Scientist, IESEM and Treasurer, Bangiya Bijnan Parishad
127 Prabhakar Jayaprakash Doctoral Scholar
128 M. Siddhartha Muthu Vijayan Scientist
129 Navjyoti Chakraborty Research Scientist, GGS Indrprastha University
130 Amitabh Joshi Professor, JNCASR, Bengaluru
131 D.Narasimha Reddy Professor of Economics(rtd),University of Hyderabad
132 Saroj Ghaskadbi Emeritus Professor, SPPU, Pune
133 Om Damani Professor, IIT Bombay
134 Bijoya Roy Public Health Researcher
135 R Suresh Babu General Manager, QC Zydus Cadila
136 B. Sathesh Senior Manager -Viral Vaccine HLL BIOTECH LTD
137 Srikanth Sastry JNCASR
138 Bala Sathiapalan IMSc
139 Kunhi Kannan Kssp
140 jyotsna jha director, centre for budget and policy studies
141 Brahmavidhya Medical Doctor DM
142 Sharath Ananthamurthy Professor, School of Physics, University of Hyderabad
143 Aparna Basu Independent Researcher
144 Pradip Kumar Mahapatra Associate Professor, Jadavpur University & General Secretary, Paschimbanga Vigyan Mancha
145 Pramode Ranjan Nandi Professor of Veterinary Gynaecology & Obstetrics
146 Sridhar Gutam Senior Scientist, ICAR-IIHR
147 Vivek Monteiro Secretary, CITU Maharashtra
148 Sudha Rao Genotypic Technology
149 Prajval Shastri astrophysicist and AIPSN
150 Ajit M. Srivastava Professor, Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar
151 Subimal Sen Ex Professor, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata
152 R.Priyanka Researcher
153 Kunta Biswas Doctor
154 Bhabani Sankar Joardar Professor
155 Debesh Kumar Das Professor
156 Indira C Public Health Researcher
157 Tarun Kumar Mandal Ex Principal
158 Prasanna Chebbi ISRC
159 Anna George Scientist (retired)
160 Malini Aisola Public health professional
161 Parthib Basu Professor, University of Calcutta
162 Rajinder Chaudhary Former Professor, MDU, Rohtak
163 Bittu K R Associate Professor of Biology and Psychology, Ashoka University
164 Maitri Bose (Biswas) Paschimbanga Vigyan Manchà
165 Rati Rao E. Scientist Rtd
166 Soham Jagtap Researcher, NIMHANS
167 Sweta Dash Researcher
168 Pradeep Shinde  Assistant Professor, CIS&LS, JNU
169 Chandan Dasgupta Honorary Professor, Indian Institute of Science
170 Annapoorna Sharma Consultant paediatrician. FRCPCH
171 Gayatri Saberwal Professor and Dean (Academic Affairs)
172 Richa Chintan Jan Swasthya Abhiyan
173 Dinesh Abrol Professor TRCSS, JNU
174 Ashok Rao  Delhi Science Forum
175 Prabir Ghosh Academic, JNU,Delhi
176 Gauhar Mehmood Professor JMI
177 P S Rajasekharan KSSP
178 dr.geyanand ex.M.L.C, JVV
179 Anshuman Das Independent Researcher Kolkatta
180 Vandana Prasad Independent Researcher Delhi
181 Biswajit Dhar Professor CESP, JNU Delhi
182 Sambit Mallik Academic IIT, Guwahati
183 Surinder Kumar Reired Professor,Rohtak
184 Rahul Independent Researcher Bhopal
185 Pritpal Randhawa Academic JNU, Delhi
186 Ravindran KSSP
187 Dharmendra Mishra  Industrial Researcher, Gurgaon
188 Savyasachi Academic, JMI Delhi
189 Biswajit Dhar Professor CESP, JNU Delhi
190 Satish Kalra Retired Professor, Hisar
191 K. N. Chatterjee General Secretary, BGVS, Dhanbad
192 O. P. Bhuratia JS AIPSN, Shimla
193 Parminder Independent Researcher, Delhi
194 Kunal Sinha Academic, CU Gandhinagar
195 C.Vishnumohan Academic, Delhi
196 Mira Shiva Public health Researcher
197 Pravin Jha  Professor CESP, JNU
198 Avinash Associate Professor, CIS&LS, JNU
199 N Raghuram  Professor
200 N.D. Jaiprakash Delhi Science Forum
201 Gauhar Raza Retired Chief Scientist, CSIR-NISCAIR
202 Madhu Prasad Retired Professor, Delhi University
203 P V S Kumar Retired Chief Scientist, CSIR-NISCAIR
204 Tejal Kanitkar NIAS, Bengaluru
205 A N Basu Ex Vice-Chancellor, Jadavpur University
206 Siddhartha Datta Ex Pro-Vice Chancellor, Jadavpur University
207 V. Parameswaran Nair Distinguished Professor, City University of New York
208 G V Raju Principal
209 Parameswaran Ajith ICTS-TIFR
210 Naresh Dadhich Former Director and Professor Emeritus, IUCAA
211 Biswajit Chakraborty Senior Professor, S.N.Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata
212 Joseph Samuel ICTS, Blore
213 Sarin S M Associate Professor, Dept of Medicine, GMC Kannur
214 Sanjiva Prasad Professor, IIT Delhi

 

Government unmasked: Abdicates vaccination responsibility

 click here for Statement On Government’s Phase-3 Vaccine Strategy 

                                                                     21 Apr 2021           

 Government unmasked: Abdicates vaccination responsibility

click here to see the press Statement

After a Meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, the Central Government announced on 19 April 2021 a “liberalized and accelerated” strategy for Phase-3 of India’s vaccination drive against the Covid-19 disease to take effect from 1 May 2021. On the face of it, the new strategy appears to meet demands of several stakeholders viz, for opening up the vaccination drive to all above the age of 18, to permit private institutions and State governments to directly acquire 50% of total vaccine production from manufacturers at unregulated prices set by the latter, grant State governments the liberty to tailor vaccination roll-out as per local needs, and provide additional finances to the two Indian Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers for scaling up production. Government has claimed that the new strategy aims to ensure that “maximum numbers of Indians are able to get the vaccine in the shortest possible of time: PM (sic).”

AIPSN welcomes the financial assistance, even though belated, extended to Serum Institute of India (SII) (Rs.3, 000 Crores) and Bharat Biotech (BB) (Rs.1500 Crores) against future supplies, to enable them to scale-up production. This measure should have been taken at the very start of the vaccination drive instead of the meager advance then given against limited orders, which would have significantly reduced the time that will now be required to make available greater volumes of vaccine. Regrettably, adequate financial support for the several PSU vaccine manufacturers presently lying idle due to ideological bias of the Government was not announced simultaneously.  This blinkered view had also led to the PSUs not even being called for discussions or consultations or being involved in non-vaccine related activities that are needed for the Covid-19 pandemic management. Now after the second wave disaster the Government wakes up to call up upon PSUs to make oxygen cylinders, bed manufacturing etc. What prevented the Government from involving the PSUs last year itself to ensure sufficient vaccine and non-vaccine materials are available when needed?

All other aspects of the new strategy, however, are highly counter-productive. By surrendering 50% of vaccine availability to the open market including for procurement by States and private hospitals, the Central government has at one stroke abdicated its responsibility for the vaccination drive and will henceforth freely blame States for any inadequacies. The strategy will pit States against each other in dog-eat-dog competition. A similar policy at early stages of the pandemic in early 2020 regarding procurement of test kits and PPEs failed miserably, forcing the Centre to centralize procurement. Only Central procurement and distribution can ensure reasonably equitable access by all States.

Opening up vaccine procurement and administration to private health facilities, corporates and other institutions at market prices will encourage price gouging and a black market in vaccine doses. It will also adversely impact the on-going vaccination programme which will henceforth have only 50% of the earlier vaccine supply, and with only government hospitals continuing free vaccinations with the empanelled private hospitals compelled to buy vaccines at market prices which will result in higher vaccination charges impacting the middle classes. This dual system can be expected to open the doors to all kinds of manipulation, favoritism and malpractices.

Privatizing 50% of vaccinations will also undoubtedly exacerbate inequities in vaccinations, in favor of urban, rich and well-connected sections of society.

No other major country, including the most market friendly nations, has adopted a vaccination strategy of this kind, precisely for the reasons enumerated here.

Even the seemingly welcome strategy of expanding the eligibility criteria to everyone above 18 years of age, without first increasing vaccine supply, may prove to be problematic in practice, at a time when there is acute vaccine shortage even for the currently eligible and more vulnerable 45+ population. Increased demand without matching supply will only increase problems in the inoculation drive which may in turn fuel vaccine hesitancy. The assertion in the new policy that enlarging the eligible population because “a good amount of coverage of vulnerable groups is expected by 30th April,” is belied by the facts.

The new strategy is not a win-win solution as propagated. Corporates, private health care institutions and the well-off will win, while the poor and the middle class will lose big time. 

AIPSN calls for rolling back of this new strategy and for a recalibrated fully public funded and universal vaccination programme, backed by adequate government support for vaccine manufacturers including PSUs.

 

 

For clarifications contact:

D.Raghunandan 9810098621; T. Sundararaman 9987438253; S.Krishnaswamy 9442158638

P.Rajamanickam, General Secretary, AIPSN gsaipsn@gmail.com, 9442915101 @gsaipsn

 

 

Statement On Second Wave of Covid-19 Pandemic in India

click here for All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) Statement (English)

click here to read the AIPSN Statement in Hindi

Click here for the statement in Odia

On Second Wave of Covid-19 Pandemic in India

14 Apr 2021

click here to read the Position paper (English) on which this statement is based. 

click here for the Position paper (Hindi) 

click here for the signed AIPSN Statement

This AIPSN Statement is based on the position paper on the Second Wave of Covid-19 Pandemic in India. India is well and truly into a brutal second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

            Accept responsibility; don’t blame the people and States  : A belated high-level meeting at the PMO blamed the people and the States for this crisis. This serves only to enable the Centre to evade responsibility for the present situation and give itself an excuse for future inaction or failure. Learning from the first wave, it is important that measures are taken through a partnership between the Centre and States, with the Centre providing evidence-based guidelines and financial as well as other assistance, with the Centre not making efforts to shift blame to States while withholding essential supplies and co-operation on many fronts. Additional epidemiological data and further analysis is required to arrive at any firm conclusions as to reasons behind this second wave, and precautions required to be taken in the future.

            Understand role of variants, expand gene sequencing: There is considerable discussion, albeit so far without adequate evidence or data, that Sars Cov2 virus variants which may be more infectious, or deadlier, or even provide a “vaccine escape,” are responsible for the second wave. Limited gene sequencing so far has thrown up concerning data regarding possible extensive presence of the UK variant (B.1.117) and the Indian double-variant lineage (B.1.617). However, insufficient information is available to draw any firm conclusions about the impact of these variants. Significantly expanded gene sequencing across the country, and correlating findings with epidemiological data, is necessary to obtain a better understanding of the dangers posed and to work out containment and mitigation strategies addressing these variants.

            Increase testing, tracing and surveillance:  India needs to vigorously test, trace, isolate and treat infected persons, besides putting in place decentralized, locally relevant and evidence-based surveillance and containment strategies. Testing needs to be ramped up significantly with emphasis on RT-PCR tests so as to uncover infections more quickly. Contact tracing was the weakest aspect of the response by governments at the Centre and most States during the first wave, with the Aarogya Setu App proving to be ineffective, and badly needs to be strengthened now. Decentralized evidence-based approaches with community participation would be most effective.

            Address Vaccine shortage & Equity: There is a seriously mistaken tendency among authorities, and also some commentators, to look to vaccines as a silver bullet to tackle the pandemic and bring this second wave to an end. India’s vaccinations per capita rank well below the global average. Many States are also complaining of shortages in vaccine supply from the Centre. There is much information available, albeit scattered and mostly anecdotal at present that a class divide is emerging in India’s vaccination drive, in cities as well as in many rural areas in the country. These deficiencies need to be urgently rectified by taking the vaccines to eligible populations at community level and conducting widespread communication campaigns on the vaccination drive. Continuing vaccine hesitancy also needs to be overcome.

            Scale-up Vaccine production and availability:  Total production by Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech, while high by the former is below even current vaccination rates, leave alone an expanded vaccination drive. Therefore the Government needs to urgently take steps to boost manufacturing capacity. At the same time, the Government should also take several other steps to ramp up availability of other vaccines. The Russian Sputnik-V vaccine has finally been given emergency use approval by DCGI. Sputnik-V is not prohibitively expensive, can be stored in ordinary refrigerators in powder form, and can therefore form an important part of India’s vaccination programme. The Government has now decided to also invite other vaccines approved by WHO and by regulators in the US, Europe and Japan to apply for approval in India. Care should be taken to ensure that modalities of import, pricing and distribution are designed in such a manner as to not accentuate the present class divide in vaccine access, and that a dual-access scenario does not emerge where the well-off have ready access to a wide variety of vaccines through private facilities by virtue of their ability to pay higher prices, while the poor struggle to access vaccines due to lack of paying ability and poor access to information. Both SII and Bharat Biotech have requested financial support from the Government to enable additional manufacturing capacities. These funds should be urgently provided so as to augment indigenous production, which may take another few months to fructify.

            Address Licensing/ IP issues: Covaxin vaccine was developed by the National Institute of Virology in Pune, a laboratory under the Indian Council of Medical Research, and the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech put it into production.  The Government must take the initiative to work out arrangements for licensing other Indian manufacturers to produce Covaxin so as to augment total supply of this vaccine. Established public sector enterprises such as the Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited, Maharashtra should also be included in this endeavor, putting aside the blind ideological opposition of the ruling dispensation to PSUs. There is no compulsion to allow Bharat Biotech to retain a monopoly over the know-how for this vaccine, especially during this dangerous second wave of the pandemic, just as India had joined South Africa to demand that vaccine developers and manufacturers in the developed countries give up their monopoly rights.

            Oppose misguided vaccine nationalism: There is a wholly misconceived campaign being mounted, including by some political parties and sections of the media, that India should stop commercial and aid-based exports of vaccines so as to prioritize domestic needs. Even before this, the Government had imposed some restrictions on exports potentially undoing the goodwill earned earlier by free supply of vaccine to friendly developing countries and by its substantial contribution to the international Covax facility to supply vaccines to lower income countries. It should also be noted that India has received back around one-third of its supplies to Covax, since India too is a beneficiary country, and largest recipient, under Covax!

China and India are amongst the few countries that are working to assist the global vaccination effort especially in developing and low-income countries, and it would be cruel and immoral to weaken or close down this endeavor in an extremely selfish display of vaccine nationalism, and that too for very little benefit. This is a record to be proud of, not condemned.

It should also be noted that it is precisely this kind of vaccine nationalism and related crass commercialism practiced by the US which is one of the major factors preventing SII, Biological-E (licensed to manufacture the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in India) and other vaccine manufacturers in India to scale up production. These manufacturers depend on various raw materials and intermediates such as specialized bags, filters, cell culture media, single-use tubing and special chemicals from the US, which has imposed an export ban on all vaccine-related materials under its Defence Production Act. If India were to similarly restrict exports, it would have no moral authority to demand opening up of exports by the US or others. It is unfortunate that despite this good track record of assisting the global vaccination effort, India has not pushed back on high-income countries such as in the US and in EU countries who have hoarded vaccines at the cost of other especially poorer countries.

 

For clarifications contact:

D.Raghunandan 9810098621; T. Sundararaman 9987438253; S.Krishnaswamy 9442158638

P.Rajamanickam, General Secretary, AIPSN gsaipsn@gmail.com, 9442915101 @gsaipsn

 

Position Paper On Second Wave of Covid-19 Pandemic in India

click here to read All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) Position Paper (English)

click here to read Hindi version of Position Paper 

On Second Wave of Covid-19 Pandemic in India

14 Apr 2021

click here to read the short statement (English) based on the position paper

click here to read the short statement (Hindi) based on the position paper 

Click here to read short statement in Odia

India is well and truly into a brutal second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Daily cases are skyrocketing to unprecedented heights, and are now the highest of all countries, while total cases have taken India to second place worldwide overtaking badly hit Brazil. For the sixth day, India had record numbers of daily cases over 1 lakh, reaching 1, 61,736 new cases on 13 April, far higher than the  record high of 97,894 new daily cases on 16 September 2020 during the first wave.  Going by current trends, India is likely to reach even higher daily case rates, with these new highs prevailing for a prolonged period, unless strong and effective steps are urgently taken. Mortality and hospitalization rates are on the rise dangerously in parts of the country and show a worrying trend overall.

Accept responsibility; don’t blame the people and States

A very belated high-level meeting at the PMO a week ago “emphasized that the reasons for the sharper rise in cases could be mainly attributed to the severe decline in compliance of Covid-appropriate behavior primarily in terms of use of masks and maintaining ‘2 Gaj ki Doori’ [two yards distance], pandemic fatigue and lack of effective implementation of containment measures at the field level.” This analysis blaming the people and the States for this crisis, and repetition of the same charge by other high officials, is disingenuous, hypocritical and even dangerous, serving only to enable the Centre to evade responsibility for the present situation and give itself an excuse for future inaction or failure. It is evident even to a casual observer that broad sections of the people all over the country have become extremely lax as regards masking, maintaining physical distancing and avoiding crowded spaces especially indoors. However, this begs the question: what was the Government doing to tackle this and prevent the inevitable consequences of a second wave, and did not the Government itself encourage this laxity?

As public health experts have pointed out, the period when cases were sharply declining reaching a trough or low point of 9,121 on 15 February, provided the best opportunity to attack the virus through vigorous containment and mitigation actions including expanded vaccinations, but the Government lowered its guard and missed this chance. Meanwhile, encouraged by signals  from the Centre, authorities everywhere relaxed all restrictions, with offices, cinemas, restaurants, malls, passenger airlines and public transport all functioning at full capacity virtually in a pre-pandemic “life as usual” mode. Learning from the first wave, it is important that measures are taken through a partnership between the Centre and States, with the Centre providing evidence-based guidelines and financial as well as other assistance, with the Centre not making efforts to shift blame to States while withholding essential supplies and co-operation on many fronts.

Experience of different countries has repeatedly underlined the importance of continued vigilance and ensuring Covid-appropriate behavior during periods of declining cases. However, the Government itself suggested, through its National Covid Supermodel, that cases in India had peaked by October 2020 and would be under control by February 2021, and led to widespread lowering of guard. Even today, in the midst of this dangerous second wave, huge crowds are attending potentially super-spreader events such as the massive gatherings at the Mahakumbh Mela, and packed rallies and road shows during the State elections frequently addressed by the topmost Government leaders who are themselves responsible for Covid-19 control measures. No guidelines have been issued, no efforts at enforcement of Covid norms are being made, and the few mild public appeals seem like a mere a formality. It would appear there is no pandemic in India!

Additional epidemiological data and further analysis is required to arrive at any firm conclusions as to reasons behind this second wave, and precautions required to be taken in the future.

Understand role of variants, expand gene sequencing

There is considerable discussion, albeit so far without adequate evidence or data, about one particular reason that may be contributing to this second wave, namely Sars Cov2 virus variants which may be more infectious, or deadlier, or even provide a “vaccine escape” i.e. being resistant to vaccine-induced immunity. It is well known that viruses mutate to combat increasing immunity in the host population due either to widespread prior infections or vaccination. The major internationally known variant strains or lineages are the so-called UK variant (B.1.1.7), which ravaged Britain and has now emerged as a dominant strain in the US and may even lead to more deaths, the South African variant (B.1.351) and the Brazilian variant (P.1.). All these variants have been observed in India. Of around 10,787 samples from 18 Indian states analyzed by labs involved with the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG), 771 variant cases were detected comprising 736 UK (336 in Punjab alone), 34 South African and 1 Brazilian variant. Maharashtra has shown a worryingly large number of cases (202 of the above sample) with a “double mutation” (E484Q and L452R), now assigned a distinct lineage B.1.617.

However, insufficient information is available as of now to draw any firm conclusions about the impact of these variants. Also, not enough is known about the efficacy of different vaccines in protecting against these variants, although some available information suggests that the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Covishield vaccine provides good protection from the UK variant but not from the South African variant. INSACOG has been beset with difficulties and only 7,664 samples – less than 1% of the total positive samples since January 2021 through March 18, 2021 – have been sequenced. It is important that India significantly expands genetic testing across the country and correlates findings with epidemiological data in order to obtain a better understanding of the dangers posed by these variants. There is therefore need for more laboratory and field studies regarding the efficacy of Covishield, Covaxin and other vaccines likely to be used with respect to these variants.

Increase testing, tracing and surveillance

It is important to note that the main public health response to the present second wave, irrespective of these variants and other factors, remains broadly the same as was advocated earlier, but learning from missteps and experience during the first wave.  India needs to vigorously test, trace, isolate and treat infected persons, besides putting in place decentralized, locally relevant and evidence-based surveillance and containment strategies. Test positivity rate in the first wave was highest at around 12.7% on 20 July 2020, about 8.7% at the case load peak around 20 September 2020 and was at its lowest at 1.6% on 15 February 2021. Today all-India average test positivity rate is high at 11.4% on 12 April 2021 showing inadequate testing, and rising continuously. Testing needs to be ramped up significantly, with emphasis on RT-PCR tests, so as to uncover infections more quickly. At the same time, testing needs to be strategic, targeting contacts of positive cases and symptomatic cases in clusters identified through community surveillance and contact tracing.

Contact tracing was the weakest aspect of the response by governments at the Centre and most States during the first wave, with the Aarogya Setu App proving to be ineffective, and badly needs to be strengthened now. Tracing all contacts quickly, testing and then isolating them if infected, is essential for quick containment of the spread of the disease, along with community-level surveillance measures to identify potential hot spots. Decentralized evidence-based approaches with community participation would be most effective. All available human resources need to be mobilized for this, going beyond health workers and the police who may have enough on their hands, and tapping NDRF, home guards, educated youth and other volunteers, and civil society organizations, all with proper training for the purpose. Data relating to contacts traced, tested and isolated should also be included in daily reporting dashboards of State governments along with cases, tests, deaths etc, since this would act as a monitoring mechanism as well as motivation to perform better.

Address Vaccine shortage & Equity

There is a seriously mistaken tendency among authorities, and also some commentators, to look to vaccines as a silver bullet to tackle the pandemic and bring this second wave to an end. India is currently vaccinating an average of 3-4 million persons per day and has so far administered around 85 million doses. While this may look good in absolute numbers, especially for a developing country, India’s vaccinations per capita rank well below the global average. Many States are also complaining of shortages in vaccine supply from the Centre.

It also needs to be emphasized that India will take at least another 55 days at present rates to administer at least one dose to the original target of 300 million persons for this phase, not counting the additional recipients due to inclusion of all above the age of 45 years in the eligible group. That still leaves a huge gap of several hundreds of millions of doses requiring to be administered even if those under 18 years are not counted. Clearly, India cannot just wait for vaccinations to be completed and must press on urgently and effectively now with the public health measures discussed above.

There is much information available, albeit scattered and mostly anecdotal at present that a class divide is emerging in India’s vaccination drive, in cities as well as in many rural areas in the country. Those missing out on vaccinations say they do not know where vaccines are being administered, how to get vaccinated, how to enroll for vaccinations, that they do not have smart phones etc. These deficiencies need to be urgently rectified by suitable modifications in the vaccination strategy, especially by taking the vaccines to eligible populations at community level and conducting widespread communication campaigns on the vaccination drive. Continuing vaccine hesitancy also needs to be overcome.

The weakness in vaccinating health workers and frontline workers, the first in the eligibility queue, also needs to be overcome urgently. Reports suggest that around one-third of health workers have not been vaccinated, for whatever reason. Having noticed some misuse of the priority facility for health workers, the Government has recently closed the enrollment of health workers for vaccination. Instead of taking punitive action against health workers by closing their enrollment for vaccination, Government should rectify the enrollment system and block loopholes, while actively persuading health workers to get vaccinated.

Scale-up Vaccine production and availability

These vaccine numbers show that, quite apart from complaints by several States about vaccine shortages and lack of timely supplies from the Centre, requirement for vaccines is currently greater than supply and likely to remain so over the next few months. According to reports, Serum Institute of India (SII) is producing around 21.6 lakh doses of Covishield daily or 648 lakh (64.8 million) doses per month. Bharat Biotech is manufacturing around 1.6 lakh doses of Covaxin daily (4.8 million doses per month). The total production is therefore enough only for 23 lakh doses daily, much below even current vaccination rates, leave alone an expanded vaccination drive. Therefore the Government needs to urgently take steps to boost manufacturing capacity. For instance, both the above manufacturers have requested the Government to finance expansion of production significantly and quickly. SII has said it could ramp up production of Covishield to 200 million doses per month if such financing is made available, and. Bharat Biotech says they could scale up production of Covaxin to around 7 times current levels or to about 33.6 million doses per month.

All those who are clamoring for on-demand vaccinations for the entire adult population should keep these supply chain constraints in mind. At the same time, the suggestion from several hospitals and doctors that those between 18 and 45 with serious co-morbidities should also be brought within the eligibility criteria for vaccinations need consideration.

At the same time, the Government should also take several other steps to ramp up availability of vaccines. At the time of writing, the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine, which has a proven high efficacy against the SARS Cov2 virus and has also undergone bridging trials in India, has been given emergency use approval by DCGI after a prolonged wait while being repeatedly asked for additional data. This contrasts sharply with the rapid pace with which Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin was approved, without even waiting for efficacy data. This is not to argue for similarly cutting of corners for Sputnik-V or other vaccines, but Government should help to expedite the process. Sputnik-V is not prohibitively expensive, unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and can be stored in ordinary refrigerators in powder form, and can therefore form an important part of India’s vaccination programme. Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has also tied up with 6 Indian vaccine manufacturing companies to together produce around 650 million doses. However, since this production in India will take time, Sputnik V will initially be fully imported from Russia. Again, at the time of writing, Government has decided to invite those vaccines approved by WHO and by regulators in the US, Europe and Japan to apply for approval in India without having to undergo bridging trials, stating that close watch would initially be kept on safety aspects before large-scale roll out.

Care should be taken to ensure that modalities of import, pricing and distribution are designed in such a manner as to not accentuate the present class divide in vaccine access, and that a dual-access does not emerge where the well-off have ready access to a wide variety of vaccines through private facilities by virtue of their ability to pay higher prices, while the poor struggle to access vaccines due to lack of paying ability and poor access to information.

Address Licensing/ IP issues

It is unfortunate that despite this good track record of assisting the global vaccination effort despite high , India has not pushed back on high-income countries such as in the US and in EU countries who have hoarded vaccines at the cost of other especially poorer countries.

India recently participated in a Meeting of the Indo-Pacific Quad grouping comprising the US, Australia, Japan and India. Among other things, the Meeting discussed a major Quad role in enhancing vaccine supplies for the Indo-Pacific region through an agreement under which the US would provide vaccine know-how and share financing with Japan, India would take responsibility for manufacture and Australia would handle logistics for supply of 1000 million doses to the region by end of 2022. Unfortunately, India did not use the occasion to raise the issue forcefully with the US, merely stating afterwards that the matter is sensitive and is being discussed with the US bilaterally. India must push the US strenuously in this regard; otherwise the “strategic partnership” would mean little.

India and South Africa also moved a proposal to the WTO in October 2020 calling for suspension of intellectual property rules and other obstructions to sharing of know-how especially to developing countries to enable the latter to manufacture vaccines, medicines and other medical products and hence to more rapidly bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control at least cost to their people. Regrettably, but true to form of the global North, the high-income countries notably the US, UK and EU blocked the proposal. In this case too, India did not actively pursue this proposal, which had the backing of the developing countries, either bilaterally with the US and other developed countries or in multi-lateral fora, revealing a possible lack of courage and determination to take on the leaders of global capitalism.

However, this demand by India points to another measure the Government could take in India so as to ramp up production of vaccines in India. The Covaxin vaccine was developed by the National Institute of Virology in Pune, a laboratory under the Indian Council of Medical Research, and productionized by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech who put it into production.  It is suggested that the Government take the initiative to work out arrangements for licensing other Indian manufacturers to produce Covaxin so as to augment total supply of this vaccine. Established public sector enterprises such as the Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited, Maharashtra should also be included in this endeavor, putting aside the blind ideological opposition of the ruling dispensation to PSUs.

There is no compulsion to allow Bharat Biotech to retain a monopoly over the know-how for this vaccine, especially during this dangerous second wave of the pandemic, just as India had joined South Africa to demand that vaccine developers and manufacturers in the developed countries give up their monopoly rights.

Oppose misguided vaccine nationalism

In this connection, there is a wholly misconceived campaign being mounted, including by some political parties and sections of the media, that India should stop commercial and aid-based exports of vaccines so as to prioritize domestic needs. Even before this, the Government had imposed some restrictions on exports potentially undoing the goodwill earned earlier by free supply of vaccine to friendly developing countries and by its substantial contribution to the international Covax facility to supply vaccines to lower income countries. India has exported around 64.5 million vaccine doses, mostly of Covishield, since January 2021. Of this, 10.5 million were free supplies to developing countries and UN peace-keeping forces, 18.2 million to Covax, and 35.8 million were commercial exports, again including under contractual agreements with AstraZeneca which has licensed the manufacture of Covishield in India. Notably, India has hugely benefited from the transfer of technology from Oxford AstraZeneca to SII of a vaccine whose price has been deliberately kept low so as to benefit other developing countries. Supplies to Covax too are contracted and manufacturers like SII have received substantial advance funding under the Covax programme, so these actually should not be stopped or delayed, although reports are that India has slowed down supplies to Covax and also under its aid programme, causing anxiety among these recipients.

It should also be noted that India has received back around one-third of its supplies to Covax, since India too is a beneficiary country, and largest recipient, under Covax! The free vaccine supplies amounts to just 3 days of vaccination in India at present rates, and even the commercial exports are equivalent to only about 10 days’ supply for vaccination in India. Therefore, stopping exports will not provide much relief from the demand-supply gap India is facing. Further, China and India are almost the only countries that are working to assist the global vaccination effort especially in developing and low-income countries, and it would be cruel and immoral to weaken or close down this endeavor in an extremely selfish display of vaccine nationalism, and that too for very little benefit. This is a record to be proud of not condemned. The point again is that what India needs to do now is to ramp up vaccine production by existing manufacturers, and by quickly approving the production and deployment of several other vaccines that are in the pipeline.

It is precisely this kind of vaccine nationalism and related crass commercialism practiced by the US which is one of the major factors preventing SII, Biological-E (licensed to manufacture the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in India) and other vaccine manufacturers in India to scale up production. These manufacturers depend on various raw materials and intermediates such as specialized bags, filters, cell culture media, single-use tubing and special chemicals from the US, which has imposed an export ban on all vaccine-related materials under its Defence Production Act. If India were to similarly restrict exports, it would have no moral authority to demand opening up of exports by the US or others.

 

For clarifications contact:

D.Raghunandan 9810098621; T. Sundararaman 9987438253; S. Krishnaswamy 9442158638

P.Rajamanickam, General Secretary, AIPSN gsaipsn@gmail.com, 9442915101 @gsaipsn

 

On Covaxin Interim Results from Phase 3 trials  

click here to read the English pdf of AIPSNStatement-on-CovaxinPhase3InterimResults-7Mar

On Covaxin Interim Results from Phase 3 trials

7 Mar 2021

All India Peoples Science Network welcomes the first interim efficacy data from Phase-3 clinical trials as released by M/S Bharat Biotech for the indigenously developed Covid-19 vaccine “Covaxin”. Based on the initial 43 cases of Covid-19 of which 39 were in the placebo arm and 7 were in the vaccinated arm of the phase 3 trial involving 25800 participants with 1:1 random allocation of vaccine and placebo, Bharat Biotech announced a point estimate of vaccine efficacy of 80.56% with two doses four weeks apart. The trial also showed protection from infection and severe disease across different segments of the population. Bharat Biotech has planned to release a second interim analysis at 87 cases, and a final analysis when 130 cases are reached in the near future. AIPSN looks forward to peer review and publication of all the data at the earliest.

Peer reviewed Phase-3 trial data should be submitted by Bharat Biotech to the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) at the earliest so that the regulator may issue revised emergency use approval for Covaxin, doing away with the various conditions attached to it, notably the requirement of administering the vaccine in clinical trial, which were considered necessary by DCGI and its Subject Expert Committee because of the absence of Phase-3 trial data at that time. These steps would overcome the objections of a large section of the scientific community and civil society in India, who had raised their voice against premature approval to Covaxin without Phase-3 trial data.

Once approval is granted by DCGI to Covaxin on par with Covishield, Covaxin can justifiably join the global set of approved vaccines against the Covid-19 disease, enabling it to cater to the huge international demand for vaccines especially among developing countries. An indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, developed by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and manufactured by Bharat Biotech, legitimately gaining such acceptance internationally, would indeed be a matter of pride for Indian science and industry.

Statements by Government spokespersons claiming vindication of their support for the premature approval for Covaxin and its inclusion in the vaccination rollout, are entirely misplaced. As anticipated by those who strongly opposed both moves, including the AIPSN, the premature approval for Covaxin without Phase-3 data, clearly under Government pressure, has avoidably caused immense embarrassment at home and abroad, damaged the reputation of Indian science and regulatory institutions, and added to vaccine hesitancy in India. Little would have been lost if DCGI had waited for Phase-3 data now available. According to publicly available data, only about 10% of the approximately 16 million vaccination doses administered so far have been of Covaxin, a gap that could have easily been made up with Covishield.

AIPSN hopes that the nearly 81% efficacy shown by the first interim analysis of Covaxin phase 3 trials will now help dispel the earlier vaccine hesitancy due to hasty approval without data. AIPSN appeals to all eligible people to get vaccinated in order to protect themselves and prevent others who cannot be vaccinated from getting Covid-19. It is hoped that Bharat Biotech will now ramp up production to required levels and join the international battle against Covid-19 with full confidence. It is time the Government realizes that promotion of true self-reliance is not well-served by artificial support or false claims, but by promotion of quality R&D and products that can match the best in the world and compete globally on its own merits.

 

 

For clarifications contact:

D. Raghunandan 9810098621 S.Krishnaswamy 9442158638

P. Rajamanickam, General Secretary, AIPSN gsaipsn@gmail.com, 9442915101 @gsaipsn