India’s New Vaccine Policy: A Breakthrough Decision in Fighting Corona

By Maria John (I MCJ)

For the past few months, the Indian government has been criticized across the globe, for its mishandling of the pandemic as well as for its vaccine shortage. But the centre has announced a course correction in the country's vaccination policy on 9th June,2021.

As per the new policy, India will shift to a centralised procurement of vaccines and will provide free vaccination against Corona virus to all above 18 years. This is believed to be a breakthrough decision in our fight against the virus.

The responsibility for vaccinations has been shared between the Central and State governments over the years. Under the earlier Covid vaccine policy, the State governments had to procure vaccines on their own for 18-44 age group. This irrational policy allowed States to procure 25% of the manufactured vaccines, while Centre would procure around 50%. But as the government is wrapping up the earlier policy, from June 21, the Central Government will buy 75% of all vaccines manufactured and will distribute it for free to the states.

The state government will thus receive the doses depending on their population, level of disease and vaccination progress and wastage. This frees the state government from directly negotiating with the manufacturers and buying the vaccines at a higher price than it was given to the Central government. This subsequently will reduce the financial burden on poorest states like Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh for buying the vaccines from the open market.

The rest 25% will continue to be allotted to the private hospitals as earlier. But the Central government has made a move to limit the service charge the private hospitals could levy to Rs 150. Thus, implementing a cap on vaccine prices in hospitals would make Covid-19 jabs more affordable to the common man.

The decision of the government came a week after the Supreme Court asked for submitting details on how the 35,00 crores allocated for vaccines in Union Budget has been spent so far. The Supreme Court referred the initial policy as 'prima facie, arbitrary and irrational’. Supreme Court also questioned the logic behind making states pay more for vaccines than the Central government. Thus, the timely intervention of the Supreme Court helped the Government in formulating an appropriate vaccine policy.

With second wave hitting the country hard, the government did not have a clue on how to deal with it. So they took a path no country had taken by giving the responsibility of vaccine procurement to the states. As the fight against second wave hardened, the state governments started to demand for additional doses and autonomy over vaccine administration. It often ended up in a tussle between the Centre and the states. But the new decision to streamline vaccination would put an end to it and encourage both the governments to work with cooperation.

The state governments welcomed the decisive move of the Centre as they believe, it would help to significantly increase the inoculation process. With centre ramping up its vaccine production and centralising the supply, around 50 lakh doses can be administered in a day in the near future. India has administered around 23 crore doses since January to its citizens. The country stands third in the world, next only to China and the US in administering the vaccine doses. So with the increased pace of the new policy, it is expected that , India will overtake US that has administered around 33 crore jabs.

Extending financial assistance to vaccine makers to carry out trials and come out with effective vaccines is also a resolute move by the government. Thus as a whole, India's new vaccination policy would create a change against the slow vaccine rollout in the country.

Another side to this policy is that, the current approach gives more priority to younger age groups, even when a substantial number of senior citizens who are more vulnerable to the virus, are yet to be vaccinated. In a report published in the British medical journal, the experts from India and UK has commented that the governments new policy causes 'huge number of avertable deaths and is deeply inequitable’. Thus the government must look into the issue to ensure no age group is left out in the process, which is very vital.

Just policy announcements won't solve the issue. The government should adopt ways to streamline the inoculation process by distributing a fair share of vaccines among states and making the process transparent. The Health Ministry's decision to procure 30 crore doses of Biological E's vaccine, 25 crore doses of Covishield and 19 crore Covaxin doses can be seen as key developments to the new policy. The government should work hard to make the policy a game changer in our fight against the pandemic. As vaccine is the only weapon to fight the virus, that has left our lives and economies devastated, the country can't afford to make a compromise on the vaccination policy.