Lockdown and collapse: mega vaccine producer suffers skyrocketing cases

NEW DELHI.- The epicenter of the coronavirus in India, the state of Maharashtra -with its capital Bombay- It will remain closed all weekend, while the country fights against a growing number of infections, with a shortage of vaccines, medicines and hospital beds, despite being a mega world producer of immunizers.

After letting down his guard with religious and political demonstrations and cricket matches with spectators in the stadium, the India experiences a new wave of the epidemic with about a million new cases just last week.

Also the authorities in New Delhi and in the states of Punjab and Rajasthan said this Saturday that in the coming days they will not be able to continue with the vaccination campaign unless the drug reserves are replenished.

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The confinement of a year ago caused one of the steepest recessions among large economies and now the central government is desperately trying to avoid a second one, which would be extremely unpopular. But many states are cracking down, notably Maharashtra, where restaurants are closed and public gatherings of more than five people are prohibited.

Every weekend until the end of April, the state’s 125 million people are confined to their homesunless they have to buy food and medicine.

India this Saturday registered a daily record of coronavirus cases with more than 145,000 positives. The Ministry of Health reported 145,384 new infections, the fifth daily figure in the last week that exceeds the 100,000 threshold. With these numbers, the total number of infected since the beginning of the pandemic exceeds 13.2 million, while the number of deaths from Covid-19 is 168.436, after adding 794 new deaths in the last 24 hours.

Pharmaceutical potency

However, in the midst of this health crisis, a counterpoint emerges. India is a major pharmaceutical power recognized worldwide even before the pandemic, since It produced almost 60% of the world’s vaccines, including vaccines against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT), tuberculosis and measles.

Now, the country is positioned as one of the determining powers to end the pandemic thanks to the exports of its vaccines. But just over 6% of the Indian population received at least some dose of the immunizer.

The director of the Serum Institute of India – the world’s largest vaccine producer by volume – which produces the Covishield vaccine (developed by the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca), recognized that they are not in a position to meet local demands.

“We are going to prioritize the needs of India,” said Adar Poonawalla. “We still cannot supply all the Indians,” he added. The executive attributed the production difficulties to US export bans on specific items needed to make vaccines, such as containers, filters, cell culture media, single-use tubes and specialty chemicals. The American president, Joe Biden, invoked in February the Defense Production Law to condition the exports of certain products to the prior satisfaction of domestic demand.

As of March 22, India had supplied 60.4 million doses of vaccines to 76 countries through different modalities that include grants in the form of aid, donations, commercial agreements and through the Covax alliance of the WHO.

However, the plague has struck its populous population relentlessly in recent weeks. Faced with this, the government has received numerous criticisms for not putting vaccination in the first line within the country. Suresh Jadhav, executive director of Serum, has already warned that half of the supply of vaccines produced in the country will be reserved for domestic use and that the government will monitor exports.

ANSA and AP agencies

THE NATION

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