Dear Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji,
Vaccinating nearly a billion people in time to achieve a reasonable level of herd immunity needs radical solutions.
The country has discussed enough on “what went wrong”. We must focus now on “what can be set right quickly”
Let us challenge ourselves with a bold vision.
India must vaccinate all eligible adults by Mar 2022, with no “out of pocket” cost to its citizens, removing all barriers to access – identity, geography, literacy, digital connectivity, economic status, disability, gender – everyone must be vaccinated. While doing so, it must create enough reserve stock to provide “booster doses” against evolving variants as well as for those sub 18 years of age to prepare for any future vulnerability to our children. All this must be guided by Science and Science alone.
I summarise below our present situation:
Addressing the demand-supply gap. Prof R Ramakumar has estimated the very immediate needs. One would need to factor in imminent mutating strains and the possible expected risk to the youth and children.
Addressing the distortion in vaccine access due to the recent policy liberalization. The benefits of “one procurer system for universal vaccination” are undeniable
To eliminate barriers to access – technology and connectivity being the most notable though not the only ones
In private sector parlance, these are simply strategic supply chain issues coupled with some much-needed policy decisions.
India’s pharma supply chain is the best in the world. It is technically sophisticated, well networked, fiercely competitive and routinely agile.
I recommend that the first two of the above problems be solved by a National Task Force for Vaccine Procurement, manned by talent sourced from the Indian pharma industry. The NTVP must be headed by an ex or current pharma CEO, who enjoys the respect of the industry and the health sector. The top 20 Indian Pharma companies must nominate their best talent for a full 12 months, fully paid by their respective organizations, to this body. This talent should be from across Vaccine science, Infectious disease and epidemiology, Procurement, Planning, Finance, Vendor Support, Quality& GMP, Technology Assessment and Process Transfer, Intellectual Property and Compulsory Licensing, etc.
The CEO must have full authority to engage this talent including those from the Union or State administration pool.
This body, NTVP, must be set up as an autonomous body by the Government of India, empowered to do the following:
Set the mandate for the “One Procurer” policy – including a ceiling price for procurement and commercial terms with full flexibility to waive off “standard government procurement processes” that may be cumbersome for an emergency and deploy creative procurement and funding models. The terms must be set on universal understood norms of compassionate pricing and access and must deal with attempts at “price gouging” firmly.
Set the “quantitative need” for vaccines, considering factors like priority for risk populations, emerging risk factors such as mutant variants and need for booster doses, etc. guided by the Scientific horsepower in its member body.
Negotiate with both Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech in a manner that ensures transparency, balances need for supply urgency without mercenary pressure, helping debottleneck “prioritization of national v/s international commitments” as well as their internal supply chain constraints, with calibrated diversification of supply sources
Set the terms for ...
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