Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the Centre must formulate a clearly defined policy to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Mr. Gandhi’s tweet comes amid news reports that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will be discussing the progress of vaccine research with principal investigators.
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“India will be one of the COVID-19 vaccine-producing nations. It needs a clearly-defined, inclusive & equitable vaccine access strategy ensuring availability, affordability & fair distribution. GOI must do it now,” the Congress leader tweeted.
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Presently, three vaccines are under trial and studies are being conducted about their safety on humans.
However, there concerns over access to such vaccines once they are mass produced, since most nations are competing with each other to vaccinate their citizens.
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On Wednesday, National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19, under the chairmanship of V. K. Paul of Niti Ayog, met for the first time to discuss about creating an infrastructure as well as guiding principles for prioritisation of population groups for vaccination.
“The expert group deliberated on conceptualization and implementation mechanisms for creation of a digital infrastructure for inventory management and delivery mechanism of the vaccine, including tracking of vaccination process with particular focus on last-mile delivery,” a statement from Health Ministry said.
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The Congress has been been critical of the Narendra Modi government’s handling of the pandemic.
On Thursday, Mr. Gandhi posted an animated graphic that showed India soaring past United States and Brazil in terms of registering daily new cases, against the Prime Minister’s statement that the situation in India has been ‘manageable’ to a great extent because of acting on time.
“Corona curve- Frightening not Flattening. If this is ‘manageable’ for the PM, then what would be ‘unmanageable’?” asked Mr. Gandhi, with the graph showing daily new cases crossing 65,0000 by August 8.
