India’s capacity to run a nationwide vaccination campaign against Covid-19 was “questioned, lampooned and prejudged to be a failure” but India proved its critics wrong, union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya has written in the foreword of a soon-to-be-released book on the inoculation drive.
The book, ‘Braving a Viral Storm, India’s Covid-19 Vaccine Story’ is written by Aashish Chandorkar and Suraj Sudhir and is being published by Rupa Publications. Mandaviya has written the foreword for the book while the CEO of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla, has written the afterword.
“There were suggestions that India may take 10 years to vaccinate its entire population. It was not just the Indian government but also the Indians who were subjected to veiled ridicule, assuming they will not understand the importance of vaccination,” Mandaviya has mentioned about the early days of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
He writes that India proved its critics wrong and over 90 per cent of adults have been fully vaccinated. “We have seen countries around the world struggle and fight for their requirement of Covid-19 Vaccines. Several global leaders have had to plead with private pharmaceutical companies to give them vaccines, often in lieu of accepting ignominious terms and conditions. India, on the other hand, has not just fought the virus successfully, it has done so with its head held high,” the health minister has written.
‘PM’s vision and conviction’
Mandaviya has written that what worked was the unflinching trust of 1.4 billion Indians in the leadership of PM Narendra Modi. “The leadership demonstrated by the PM in steering India through the course of Covid-19 pandemic has been exemplary. His vision for India to invest time, effort and financial resources early on in potential vaccine candidates paid off,” Mandaviya writes.
“It was the vision and conviction he put in India’s scientific and research talent which ensured that India became atmanirbhar (self-reliant) when it came to ensuring vaccine availability, access and affordability in the country,” the health minister writes, stressing on this ‘Triple A Rating’ as a matter of immense satisfaction and pride for India.
Nothing short of a wonder: Adar Poonawalla
Serum Institute of India played a major part in India’s Covid-19 vaccination journey with its vaccine, Covishield. “Let us not forget for a minute that what we achieved on the vaccination front was nothing short of a wonder. A country with such a large population and with so many variations across states could still achieve more than 2 billion doses in a planned and organised manner,” Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla has written in the afterword of the book.
He recounts that in hindsight this may sound easy but at the start of the pandemic, “very few people would have given India a shot at such staggeringly high quality of self-reliant execution.”
“India showed the world that a country can overcome stiff challenges when its scientific minds and medical professionals come together with the right policy support from the government. India has never been short of ideas and ingenuity. When this spirit of exploration and risk-taking meets the right operating environment, India can do wonders,” Poonawalla writes.
He says that Serum could get USFDA approval for a new vaccine, a feat no Indian company has ever achieved in vaccines. “This step opens the door for the industry and no country can look at India as an inferior player,” Poonawalla writes. He says Serum now has an over 4-billion dose capacity and the total Indian capacity of doses may be around 7 to 8 billion doses.
“As the pandemic recedes, the available capacity can be deployed in the future as per the evolving requirements,” Poonawalla writes, adding that SII can now handle multiple technologies like messenger RNA. He has also praised PM Modi’s leadership.
Economist Sanjeev Sanyal, in his message for the book, has commented that “India did it in its own way often shunning the advice of ‘experts’ in dealing with Covid-19 which was the biggest medical and socio-economic shock since the Second World War”.
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