Also, we should not forget that currently six vaccines are approved in India but only three are being used. Among these three vaccines, only one of these is majorly used (Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine made by Serum Institute of India, and sold as Covishield, is given ). Covaxin (made by Bharat Biotech) is also rolled out along with Sputnik (Russian vaccine) but the number of people who have got Sputnik is very low though Covaxin uptake is relatively more than Sputnik but far less than Covishield.
Why are other three vaccines not being rolled out in India despite being approved sometime back? Moderna (licensed to Cipla for marketing), Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine (licensed to Biological-E for domestic production) and ZyCovD of Zydus Cadila are yet to make a debut in the country. Alongside scaling up the supply side, it is equally important to expand India's capacity manifold to export vaccines to those countries in dire need of vaccines.
In this moment of prolonged global public-health emergency, hope not just India and UK but all countries worldwide will let Gandhi ji's wisdom of "science with humanity" guide the Covid response.
Bobby Ramakant - CNS (Citizen News Service)
(Bobby Ramakant is a World Health Organization Director General's WNTD Awardee 2008, and part of CNS (Citizen News Service) and Asha Parivar teams. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyRamakant or read www.bit.ly/BobbyRamakant)
- Shared under Creative Commons (CC)
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