The government instead went into a publicity overdrive later, bragging about its vaccinations while brushing under the carpet the bodies of the second wave.
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India’s shortage of Covid-19 vaccines that precludes immediate inoculation for all adults is rooted in the Narendra Modi government’s lack of funding for key vaccines under development and evaluation, experts have said.
The experts, who have tracked global vaccine efforts, said the Indian government’s lack of investments contrasted with the actions of many countries, including America and Britain, that provided advance funding to vaccine makers and signed purchase pacts with them.
The Centre had last November announced a Rs 900-crore project, coordinated by the Union science ministry’s department of biotechnology, for Covid-19 vaccines.
But none of this money went to either Covishield, the AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India at Pune, or Covaxin, the home-grown vaccine made by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. Instead, a part of it was given to candidate vaccines that were at more nascent stages of development.
Pfizer and Moderna shots, based on mRNA technology, mostly have served wealthy nations. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are expected to fill the global gap.
Rare side effects cast cloud over vaccines much of the world desperately needs Christopher Rowland A doctor fills a syringe with the Indian version of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine at a hospital in Kabul on Monday. (Rahmat Gul/AP) Concerns about blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines are deepening worries that the shots may not soon reach developing nations, which are far behind rich countries in immunizations and lack widespread access to costlier alternatives. The rollout of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines this year generated a surge of optimism in the United States and helped President Biden reap the political rewards of an accelerating schedule of immunizations.