New Delhi: The Central government will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with vaccine manufacturers Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech for rolling out of Covid-19 vaccination process.
Government sources told ETV Bharat on Monday that the vaccination process will start immediately after signing of MoU.
"As soon as the contract is signed between government and manufacturers, the rollout will start. We hope that the rollout will start by this week," said Dr Suneela Garg, advisor, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) while elaborating the step ahead for vaccination in the country.
She also expressed confidence that Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN will be the safest vaccine.
"We will get phase 3 result of the Bharat Biotech vaccine very soon. We did not get any side effects following phase 1 and 2 trial of COVAXIN," said Dr Garg.
The statement given by the ICMR advisor assumes significance following the fact that a section of people including opposition parties have raised questions over the safety issue of COVAXIN following the fact that drug regulator on Sunday approved COVAXIN for emergency use authorisation (EUA) before getting efficacy data from phase 3 clinical trial.
Garg added that COVAXIN will be a real time tested vaccine.
"COVAXIN is an inactivated vaccine which has been thoroughly monitored by ICMR and the National Institute of Virology. So we don't need to worry about its side effects," she said.
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India's apex drug regulator, DCGI, on Sunday gave emergency use authorisation (EUA) to both COVISHIELD of SII and COVAXIN of Bharat Biotech.
Dr Garg said that SII's COVISHIELD will be number one vaccine as of now whereas COVAXIN will work as a 'backup' vaccine.
"Simultaneously, trials of the vaccines will continue," Dr Garg added.
She said that the vaccine manufacturer will directly send the vaccine to the regional vaccine store from where it will be distributed to states, districts and other vaccination centres.
Reiterating that air and road channel will be utilised for transporting the vaccine, Dr Garg said, "Vaccine will be transported through insulated vans so that the required temperature of the vaccine can be maintained."
She said that there are regional vaccine store across India from where the vaccine will go to the districts and to the cold chain points of near about 30,000.
Government has already made the airports ready with cold chain rooms in the terminal.
As per strategy prepared by the Union Health Ministry, about 3 crore people will be vaccinated in the first phase. Health care workers, frontline workers including security forces and people above 50 years of age with co-morbidities will be vaccinated first.
"If we take all three categories into consideration, it will take nearly six months to vaccinate 3 crore people. Of course, availability of vaccine also needs to be ensured, although we have 60 million doses of Serum Institute of India (SII) till date," said Dr Garg.
Talking on the pricing issue of Covid vaccine, Dr Garg said that for the government it will be Rs 200 per dose and for private it will be Rs 1,000 per dose.
"The manufacturers will get Rs 200 per dose from the government and Rs 1000 from the private sector," said Dr Garg.
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She emphasised that the private sector will play a very vital role in the entire vaccination process.
"Public-private partnership is very much necessary. With their expertise and other resources, the private sector will definitely play a big role in this entire process," said Dr Garg.
She further said that Covin app will also play a vital role in their mammoth process as it will keep the authorities informed about all development related to the vaccination process.
When asked about major challenges in this huge vaccination process, Dr Garg said that the logistic issue will be a major point of the lookout. "We have to see whether the vaccine reaches proper places on time or not. At the same time beneficiaries need to be convinced for vaccination," said Dr Garg.
There should be myths doing the round involving the vaccine, and we have to remove such myths, Dr Garg said.
