How India met the Covid challenge

Administering 100 crore vaccines is a remarkable achievement, recognised not just within the country but globally as well. It gives us a level of confidence that we can take on any major public health challenge. We are inoculating around an average of 60-70 lakh people every day, which is not an easy task, considering the vastness and varied demographics of the country.

Vaccination is one of the key measures of controlling the pandemic, but equally important is following Covid-appropriate behaviour. Every citizen has to ensure that we don’t create an environment where the virus can spread, again.

India has always been known as the largest producer of vaccines. What did it take for it to become a developer of the vaccine? This has been a very remarkable journey where we saw researchers coming together from academia, the industry, and start-ups. We shared knowledge, ideas and infrastructure, breaking the boundaries between academia and the industry. And the result is there for all to see. We indigenously developed Covaxin which, along with Covishield, has driven our vaccination programme. We have already got emergency use authorisation (EUA) for the world’s first DNA vaccine, and soon we are going to have a vaccine from Biological E. Besides, an mRNA vaccine is in phase 2 clinical trials.

We are confident that with the infrastructure and scientific acumen we have, we can develop many other vaccines, beyond Covid-19.

Even though Covid-19 vaccines have been developed in a short time and are being given EUA, we haven’t cut short the trial and have a good amount of safety data from their phase-2 and phase-3 trials. Various studies are going on post-vaccination to keep track of the vaccine efficacy against different variants. We have also got data to show the types of breakthrough infections, re-infection cases, etc, which gives us the confidence that the vaccines are both effective and safe.

Various institutes across the country, including DBT’s Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), have undertaken long-term studies to study various aspects of the vaccines.

There were challenges that the country faced during the development phases of the vaccines. Vaccine development is a complex process. The challenges faced were on the scientific and technical front, which every scientific researcher would face. We were looking at developing five to six vaccines simultaneously. So, initially, our challenge was to have adequate research facilities to meet the demand.

In fact, India was one of the first countries that prepared a roadmap to fight the disease, along with developed nations such as the US and the UK, at the WHO meeting in February 2020. We identified vaccines as our biggest strengths. The government supported this high-risk innovation funding for new vaccine development platforms and that’s how the industry got the confidence to work on mRNA and DNA vaccines.

Simultaneously, we identified the gaps: We needed more animal facilities, immunoassay laboratories and clinical trial facilities, and we quickly ramped them up.

Today, we have 54 clinical trial sites and 4 animal test facilities and our researchers don’t have to depend upon resources from overseas. We have all the required resources within the country. So, this has been a strategically planned effort.

This massive investment in research will also help the country. This was the first time that the government so quickly invested in a mission focused on a product. Mission Covid Suraksha which was launched under the Atmanirbhar Bharat programme was a Rs 900-crore mission that helped us develop a number of vaccines in such as short time.

In fact, I also strongly believe that we could achieve it because we have been investing in the basic science ecosystem for some years now. And this capacity that we have built will encourage us to develop vaccines for tuberculosis, dengue, chikungunya, malaria, and many more And most importantly, a pan-coronavirus vaccine that could provide protection against all variants of Covid-19.

The writer is secretary, Department of Bio-Technology