Monday Post

So on Saturday 16^th January 2021 India launched the vaccination drive against Covid 19. Now with this drive, many controversies also started flourishing on this issue. First was why politicians are not getting vaccinated and first name in the list was that of PM Narendra Modi, and the reason given was that he is not sure about the result of these vaccines, which are now available in India. On this someone replied that if opposition parties feel that PM is afraid than why the leaders like Rajiv Gandhi and the leaders from other like minded parties are not coming forward and say that they are willing to be vaccinated. But no, these leaders only wants to criticise PM. Actually govt had already announced that the first group that to be vaccinated will be all frontline doctors, nurses and paramedical staff, why then this controversy arose  is a million dollar question. Now if PM Modi would have allowed frontline politicians in the first phase then controversy would have been PM  is only caring about himself and his other ministers and he is directly indicating that I do not care of about general public. So in both the circumstances, he would have been criticised. In my opinion he took the right decision regarding in the first phase only medical and para medical fraternity will be covered.

Second controversy, which has been going on in the media and social media is regarding effectiveness of Serum Institute of India vaccine (developed by British –Sweedish pharma giant AstraZeneca) and indigenously developed Bharat Biotech’s vaccine (Covaxin). Here the multi national pharma company through local partner Serum Institute started propaganda about 2 weeks back, how the govt has given the permission to launch Covaxin, as their trails are fully not completed. Now it has come into open that this multi national company wants to sabotage the Indigenously developed vaccine, because the market price of this vaccine is much lower than the price of their vaccine, and they are afraid if this vaccine is effective and then Indian company might get more orders from the world market. So before the actual launch of vaccination drive in India this controversy was created in media. It so happened after that many state govts started  requesting the central govt please donot send into our state the vaccine of Bharat Biotech. Then the central govt gave the statement that we have approved the efficacy of both the vaccines and then only we have given the permission to both the companies to go ahead.

This controversy is not going to go down, as the media is playing for multi national pharma company, which has already created fear in the public mind. As three of the 11 states Tamilnadu, Telengana & Bihar which started administrating the Covaxin on Saturday, have pointed out that the beneficiaries were reluctant to sign the consent form, resulting in less than 50% strike rate on the first day of the public immunisation drive. Even in Telengana there was reluctancy, the healthcare workers were reluctant to have Covaxin, here also the big problem is the consent form they need to sign. At least in Rajasthan there was no reluctancy in Covaxin, but only 314 of the targeted 600 got vaccinated, and reported no adverse effects. But there was great reluctance in Tamilnadu regarding Covaxin, on Saturday only 99 Covaxin doses out of targeted 600 were administrated. On Sunday the situation was little better when the state administrated 90 dose till 2 pm. Main problem of people not signing the consent from could be language (English) in which was printed. Rajasthan was better placed because they have translated the consent form in Hindi  and the said Hindi print copy was given to beneficiary, so the healthcare workers could understand what they are signing.

Other main reason of beneficiaries not signing the consent form when severe adverse comments following vaccination have been reported recently. 29 people died in Norway following administration of  Pfizer vaccine on Saturday. Australia scientific community has raised doubts over the efficacy of Astra Zeneca vaccine.

It is a fact that seeing the Covid 19 pandemic over the world, the pharam companies who are developing the vaccine did not have enough time to carry out trials  on volunteers in great details to  so that efficacy of the vaccine can be determined in greater details. The reason was that all the govts in world, wherever the pharma companies were located started putting pressure on them for completing the trials of vaccine, and launch the same. This is first time in pharma history that a vaccine for particular disease is launched within a year of onset of disease, otherwise till now the pharma companies were taking anywhere between 3 to 5 years for the launch of vaccine with all the trials.

I hope the vaccine administration all over the country goes without any more hitch or more controversy.

In the end my humble request to all the political parties not to do politics on the issue of Covid 19 vaccine, and put the fear in the minds of general public.

Waiting for your comments and views.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

18^th January 2021v