‘Will take more than a year for vaccine to be available for normal people,’ says AIIMS Director

Last updated on February 20th, 2023 at 01:27 pm

Common people will have to wait till 2022 to get a shot of the coronavirus vaccine, confirms the AIIMS director Randeep Guleria. 

In an interview to CNN-News18, the director who is also a part of the National Task Force designated to handle the coronavirus crisis in the country said  it will take “more than a year” for a coronavirus vaccine to be easily available in the Indian markets.

“In our country the population is large; we need time to see how the vaccine can be bought from the market like a flu vaccine and take it. That will actually be the ideal situation.”

The whole population is relying on the hopes of getting a vaccine by next year and Guleria’s statement is sure to shatter the hopes of many. He said that even after the vaccine is made available in the market, there are a lot of challenges that the country will face. The biggest of those is making it reachable for all. 

“So if we have a vaccine that comes out later and is seen to be more effective than the first one, how do we position it? How do we do a course correction? How to then decide who needs vaccine A and who needs vaccine B? A lot of decisions need to be taken as we go along,” AIIMS director said.

It was also asserted by the doctor that even if vaccines are brought to use, it does not guarantee that the coronavirus vaccine will extinguish. He explained that it might treat the virus but to think that it will completely eradicate the virus is extreme. 

On Friday, the foriegn secretary had announced that India will help those in need for the treatment by using its strength to produce vaccines and deliver it. This briefing was supposedly organised for 190 diplomatic heads from all over the world. 

In the briefing, Shringla said that India has been approached by several countries to receive vaccine supply and he promised that the Prime Minister is committed to India supplying vaccines to other countries in need. It will also be helping countries to enhance their cold chain and storage capacitors for the transportation of vaccines.

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