Can cover all by December-end using only domestic vaccine supply: NTAGI chief

PUNE: Negotiations over indemnity may delay availability of foreign vaccines, but India can cover its adult population by year-end just by using domestic supply, a top central official has said.

Foreign manufacturers — Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson — want protection from legal action if their shots trigger side effects. But India's negotiators are insisting there should be a clause. The ongoing talks may delay actual availability.

NK Arora, chairman of the Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), said focus is on to make full use of domestic production and supply.

“The country has not been dependent on foreign vaccines so far. We will be able to vaccinate the whole adult population by the end of this year with domestic supply. A plan has been drawn out,” Arora told TOI on Thursday.

If foreign manufacturers are given indemnity, it will apply to domestic manufacturers too. On the domestic supply plan, Arora said there is a commitment of 135 crore doses till December 2021.

He said, “In the coming weeks, Zydus Cadila's ZyCOV-D vaccine will hopefully be given emergency use authorisation. And over the next few months, two more shots should be available: Corbevax from Biological E and the mRNA shot from Gennova. The estimated number of doses to be available till December 2021 has not taken into account any imported vaccine dose.”

On Covid shots for children, he said drives may start by the first quarter of 2022 — only after the adult programme is over. Three trials are ongoing to test the shots in children, he added.

“The July 2021 sero survey shows children are as exposed as adults. But children below 10 make up just 3% of all the symptomatic patients, which means they mostly have asymptomatic or at the most, mild infection. It is expected that paediatric immunisation will be taken up in the first quarter of 2022,” Arora said.

He also said there’s currently no plan to reduce the interval (84 days) between two Covishield doses. Studies from across the country, he said, show some given one or both jabs of Covishield have gone on to contract Covid. “But these infections are mild and mostly need neither hospitalisation nor oxygen or ventilator support," Arora said.

He said the Centre is also set to deploy National Vaccine Tracker (NVT), which will monitor effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines — by type and beneficiary status (partial or complete) — across the country.