Vaccine policy has many holes in it, needs a rejig
The Union government’s decision to withdraw from its responsibility to complete a universal vaccination programme against Covid-19 militates against the basic ideas of democratic governance, governmental responsibility during a pandemic, and worse, makes its own budgetary proposals questionable. Most vaccines against common diseases are free at the receivers’ end as governments take upon themselves the primary responsibility of public health. Vaccines are a critical tool for ensuring it. And a pandemic means the crippling of normal life and the resultant crippling of the economy. No government can afford to pass over that job to any other agency, leave alone the private sector.
The Government of India, which worked with the state governments last year when the first wave of the pandemic Covid-19 hit our shores, seems to be abdicating that responsibility in so far as its younger population is concerned, despite studies pointing out that the current sweep of the virus has hit the younger ones more fatally than in its previous avatar.
It is more perplexing that the government washed its hands of the programme in spite of the fact that the budget for financial year 2021-22 had allocated `35,000 crores for vaccination alone, with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman promising additional funds if required. A back-of-the-pack calculation using the information available in the public domain will convince anyone that the government has parliament’s sanction to vaccinate every Indian aged above 18. It goes like this: There are about 100 crore Indians who are eligible for vaccination and the government will have to procure 200 crore doses to vaccinate them all. The government has been purchasing the vaccine at the rate of `150 per dose, which the chief executive officer of Serum Institute of India says gives his company profits but denies it super-profits. Even if the government pays a little more, say `175 per dose, the budgeted amount of Rs 35,000 crores would be sufficient for a universal vaccination programme. Given this math, the government must now explain to the people why it has chosen to abandon the vaccination plan and asked the state governments to compete in the marketplace for vaccinating Indians.
The government has very little option, and time, to rework its policy and formulate a workable action plan as the nation scales new heights in the number of Covid-19 cases and sets world records every day. The country’s poor health infrastructure, already overburdened, is bursting at its seams and as a nation we will hear more tragedies, such as the loss of 24 lives on ventilators in Nashik because of a gas leak. Thousands run pillar to post in search of a hospital bed or an oxygen cylinder and the unfortunate ones fall dead by the wayside. The Delhi high court was forced to censure the government and remind it that it must care for human lives.
The signals are too bad, and cannot brook delays. The government should take over Covid management without loss of time, reverse its ill-conceived vaccine policy, ensure every Indian is vaccinated for free as in most other nations, and stop the dance of death and the sinking of the economy.
The government has very little option, and time, to rework its policy and formulate a workable action plan as the nation scales new heights in the number of Covid-19 cases and sets world records every day