India To Digitize Vaccine Delivery Nationwide

Last updated on February 14th, 2023 at 01:17 pm

India will be using a digital infrastructure for the dissemination and inventory management of the novel Covid-19 virus vaccine once it becomes available.

It is also devising a fool proof method of procurement including both indigenous and international. This will also include guiding principles to prioritize focus groups.

The national expert group on vaccine administration for Covid-19 is said to have sort inputs from the country’s apex advisory body on immunization- National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI. The panel also advised states not to chart separate pathways for procurement. The idea is to create a centralized system that can track procurement and delivery without any chance of pilferage.

Unlike countries like Russia which have suspected to have stolen technology from UK for declaration of their first vaccine for Covid-19 without any successful trials, India would like to be humanitarian in its approach. It has full intentions of roping in domestic vaccine manufacturers and also ensures that the dosages can be made available to low income countries.

 Meanwhile the apex body is also discussing financial rollouts in order the dissemination can be done timely and seamlessly. Additionally, there will be need of proper infrastructure to ensure vaccines can be stored and delivered in a systematic manner. While this might be done is a phased manner, a detailed roadmap has been laid out for the same.

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Also, the committee has also discussed issues relating to vaccine safety and surveillance apart from a strategy for community involvement through transparent information and awareness creation. Currently, there are three candidates working on developing the vaccine in India. They are said to be in different stages of human clinical trials. One is the Pune-based Serum Institute of India that has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing Oxford vaccine in India, the second one is the Serum Institute of India that has been permitted for conducting Phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the third vaccine candidate developed by the Oxford University. Also ongoing is the phase-1 and 2 human clinical trials of two other vaccines that has been developed indigenously by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research, and Zydus Cadila Ltd.