India biggest COVID-19 vaccine buyer with 1.6 bn doses, could cover 60% population: Report

Being the largest buyer of COVID-19 vaccines in the world with 1.6 billion doses, India has already purchased 500 million doses of Oxford University-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine candidate, one billion from US-based Novavax, 100 million doses of Sputnik V, as per Duke University Global Health Innovation Center. Scientists believe that 1.6 billion doses can cover about 800 million people which is about 60 percent of the country's population and is enough to develop herd immunity. The European Union is the second-largest buyer of COVID-19 vaccines with 1.58 billion doses followed by the US that has purchased a little over one billion doses. While India has purchased three COVID-19 vaccines as of November 30, the US and EU have purchased six vaccine candidates as per the Launch and Scale Speedometer analysis.

"High-income countries currently hold a confirmed 3.8 billion doses, upper-middle-income countries hold 829 million doses, and lower-middle-income countries hold more than 1.7 billion doses," claims the report by Duke University in the US. 

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"250 million to be vaccinated in 2021"

Duke University's global assessment report of purchasing agreements for the vaccine candidates before the roll-out of the vaccine in the market, states that with a higher manufacturing capacity, countries like India and Brazil have been successful in bargaining a large advance market commitment with the top COVID-19 vaccine candidate as a part of the manufacturing deal. Speaking further about it, virologist Shahid Jameel informed that the data has bee discovered from public documents and after speaking to the concerned government officials. The virologist further informed that the 3 COVID-19 vaccines 'pre-booked' by India are manufactured by Indian firms Serum Institute of India that will manufacture Novavax and  Oxford-AstraZeneca and Dr Reddy’s Lab that will manufacturer Sputnik V while on the other hand, Indian company Bharat Biotech's vaccine candidate has kickstarted the phase three clinical trials earlier this week. 

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Speaking further director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences of Ashoka University, Shahid Jameel said, "Bharat Biotech and Zydus-Cadila would also add about 400 million doses annually. In brief, the numbers appear reasonable over 2021 and 2022. We can expect the first 250 million to be vaccinated in 2021; the remaining in the following years. The problem will not be vaccine doses, but the ability to deliver them. The first 500 million doses are likely to go to 250 million people in the group that includes frontline workers, healthcare workers, sanitation, emergency services, and security services including those above 65 years of age and people with comorbidities."

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Speaking further immunologist from New Delhi's National Institute of Immunology, Satyajit Rath said, "Since all the vaccine candidates that are being discussed as purchased have two-dose vaccine regimens, the current number for India would vaccinate, at best, 80 crores (800 million) people. This, of course, does not account for logistical losses, which can be substantial. Also, this seems to imply that COVID-19 vaccination is a one-time exercise. But it is not clear how long the vaccine-mediated protection will last, and therefore it is not clear when repeat vaccination will be needed, and how that will be delivered. Have these been paid for or at least committed to at a given price, are these acquisitions through the COVAX programme or independent of it, and most of all, of course, what is the delivery schedule agreed to in this acquisition, etc. The next set of uncertainties I have is whether there are credible and well-worked out plans in India to match these delivery schedules with downstream transport, uptake and actual vaccination, plans for multi-stage transport, multi-point cold storage, provision of injection accessories…, the recording-keeping needed and most of all, the skilled personnel to administer the injections."

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(With inputs from PTI)