India today launched one of the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination programs, which is expected to reach some 300 million people by the end of July. As the outbreak has claimed more than 150,000 lives in the region and hit the economy hard, authorities are counting on the vaccination to bring the epidemic to an end.
India, with a population of 1.3 billion, has the second highest cumulative number of confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the world at more than 10.5 million. The Indian government plans to vaccinate about 1/4 of the country’s population in the first phase, including medical personnel, people over 50 years old and high-risk groups.
The challenge of India’s large and complex vaccination program is made more difficult by the country’s weakened infrastructure, the spread of false news about the vaccine on the Internet, and the fact that one of the vaccines was administered before clinical trials were completed.
The Indian authorities have approved two vaccines, Covishield, produced by the Serum Institute of India and developed by the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with other institutions. The Indian government has ordered the first 11 million and 5.5 million doses of Covishield and Covaxin, respectively.
Covaxin, which has received an “emergency authorization” from the Indian government, has raised concerns among some physicians because Phase III trials have not yet been completed. Because the vaccine is still in “clinical trial mode,” the Indian public who receive the vaccine today will be required to sign a consent form confirming that “clinical efficacy…is yet to be confirmed.
The Indian government has four “mega warehouses” to receive the vaccine shipments and then uses temperature-controlled trucks to transport the vaccine from the warehouses to distribution sites in the provinces, keeping the vaccine below 8 degrees Celsius during the process.
The government of India has prepared hundreds of thousands of refrigerating tools for vaccines, including 29,000 cold chain locations, 240 cold storage units, 70 freezers, 45,000 ice-lined refrigerators and 41,000 ultra-low temperature freezers. This equipment will come in handy once the Indian summer comes.
The Indian authorities have placed a total of about 150,000 trained staff in 700 districts across the country to perform vaccination and track records. There are also plans to digitally manage the entire vaccination process through a self-developed CoWIN application (App) that links each dose of vaccine to the people who receive it. These arrangements are expected to overcome the challenges of the vaccination program.
On the first day of vaccination today, about 300,000 people will be vaccinated at 3,000 sites across India. The authorities said that people will receive two doses of the vaccine 28 days apart, but one dose of the same vaccine instead of one dose of each of the two vaccines, and that protection will begin to develop 14 days after the second dose.
In order to prevent any vaccine from being stolen and sold to India’s largest drug black market, the authorities dare not take any risks and have arranged armed police to protect each vaccine delivery truck and installed surveillance cameras in the storage warehouses, and entry is also subject to fingerprint identification.
The “Times of India” (Times of India) reported that the temperature of vaccine storage will also be monitored through automated data loggers, which will transmit information to a central unit every 3 seconds.
Preeti Kumar, an Indian public health expert, told AFP: “Security measures are essential not only to address logistical and security concerns, but also to build confidence in the public that the entire supply chain of vaccines arriving at distribution sites is intact, uncompromised and safe.”
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