A high-level government committee chaired by NITI Aayog member (health) Vinod K. Paul will meet states and manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss means to fund, procure and plan logistics of vaccines against covid-19, when they are approved and commercialised.
“The government has formed a National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration which is scheduled to meet tomorrow (Wednesday). This group will be chaired by NITI Aayog’s member health…,” health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said on Tuesday, adding that he will co-chair the committee.
The terms of reference for the panel would be to monitor delivery of vaccines, select suitable vaccine candidates which are approved, finance and procure the vaccines as well as prioritise groups who will get the vaccines first. The panel will also discuss logistics of the vaccine, in terms of the inventory of vaccines that needs to be procured and the cold chain that has be put in place for storage, Bhushan said.
Apart from Paul and Bhushan, the panel will also include external affairs secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, department of biotechnology secretary Renu Swarup, health research secretary Balram Bhargava, All India Institute of Medical Sciences director Randeep Guleria, among other high level officials, a health ministry source said.
Indian vaccine manufacturers had last week raised concerns at a public event that the government has not yet held talks with them about procurement and financing of the vaccines once it will be developed, nor about logistics, which will be a major issue going forward to tackle the covid-19 pandemic. A major concern is especially in terms of bottling at least 500 million doses for the country’s population to begin with.
“There are only seven serious vaccine manufacturers in the country, but there has not been even one meeting held where all these seven people have been brought together (by the government) into one room, and try to even understand where we are related to in terms of R&D,” India Immunologicals MD K. Anand Kumar said at a Telangana government event last week.
Similar statement were also reiterated by Biological E. managing director Mahima Dattla and Bharat Biotech International Ltd chairman & managing director Krishna Ella at the event.
Bhushan on Tuesday said that government officials are discussing procurement and funding mechanisms, as well as how many doses they have to procure, but it was too premature to comment.
“The issue of requirement of vaccine and various modalities of funding the procurement of a possible vaccine have been engaging the attention of the ministry of health for quite some time now. There have been internal consultations, which have been going on. We have also consulted a large number of stakeholders, and we have also made certain projections. As I said earlier, today probably would be premature to share those projections with you,” Bhushan said.
Bharat Biotech’s inactivated vaccine candidate, co-developed with the National Institute of Virology, is among the three candidates currently undergoing human trials in India.
The other Indian candidate is Zydus Cadila Ltd’s DNA plasmid vaccine, while Serum Institute of India is currently undertaking a phase 3 clinical trial of Astrazeneca plc and University of Oxford’s jointly-developed adenovirus-based covid-19 vaccine.
Serum Institute of India last week received a $150 million funding from the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance for two promising vaccines by University of Oxford and Novavax under the condition that the Pune-based firm prices the two vaccines at a maximum of $3 per dose.
Under the agreement, the company will to produce at scale up to 100 million doses for distribution to India and other countries as early as the first half of 2021 after gaining regulatory approval and World Health Organization’s pre-qualification.
Serum Institute had in June signed a pact to provide a billion doses of the Oxford vaccine to low- and middle-income countries, and last week also signed a pact with Novovax to produce minimum of 1 billion doses of its candidate vaccine NVX‑CoV2373 for India and other low- and middle-income countries.