Coronavirus: Indians cheer, pray as vaccines 'like gold' arrive for massive immunisation drive
It was 4am but a large crowd had still gathered outside the Serum Institute of India in Pune on Tuesday, its members jostling for position to get a better look as the gates of the world's largest vaccine manufacturer opened and a convoy of refrigerated trucks started rolling out.
Contained within were the first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine produced by Serum - 6.44 million shots ready to be flown to 14 cities across the country, kick-starting what officials have called the biggest vaccine drive on Earth.
Smiling onlookers applauded and snapped photos to mark what Prime Minister Narendra Modi characterised as a "decisive turning point" in India's fight against the coronavirus, which has infected more than 10 million people in the country so far and claimed over 152,000 lives.
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Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute, said it was an "emotional moment for the team" as he posted a picture to Twitter of himself perched on the back bumper of one of the trucks stacked high with boxes of vaccines.
Health workers, police officers and sanitation staff will be among the first to receive the jabs when the initial phase of India's vaccine roll-out - to cover 300 million people - gets under way on Saturday. Modi will launch the inoculation programme at 10.30am online, with recipients getting their shots at some 3,000 vaccination sites across the country.
In addition to Covishield, authorities will also use home-grown vaccine COVAXIN, jointly developed by Bharat Biotech with a state-run institute. A top government vaccine official told Reuters that people would not be able to choose which one they get.
Besides frontline workers, about 270 million or so people in the country who are over the age of 50 or have been deemed high-risk are also eligible for the first phase of the inoculation programme.
India can draw on its experience conducting regular child immunisation programmes for polio and tuberculosis, as well as the colossal task of holding elections in the world's biggest democracy every five years.
It also "had the advantage of being able to observe how Britain and US started their programmes", said Dr Suneela Garg, who is overseeing the inoculation campaign in the capital New Delhi.
"Our three mammoth mock drills all over the country showed that the preparations look pretty good so far," she said.
Those in the excited huddle outside the Serum Institute on Tuesday were not taking any chances, however - garlanding the first refrigerated truck to come out of the facility with auspicious white chrysanthemums as a policeman said a Hindu prayer and cracked open a coconut for good luck.
When the first of the vaccines reached Delhi, a police escort helped whisk them through the traffic to Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, where a storage centre equipped with 90 deep freezers capable of holding more than 4 million vials has been set up.
Conditions inside the centre are constantly monitored, with alarms that will sound if temperatures move outside the range of 2-8 degrees Celsius required for the vaccine's safe storage. Outside, police and hospital security staff stand guard round the clock.
Dr B. Sherwal, the hospital's director, said the vaccines were being treated "like gold", even though each dose only cost the government 200 rupees (US$2.74).
Raman Verma, owner of Sanjivini Chemists in New Delhi. Photo: Handout alt=Raman Verma, owner of Sanjivini Chemists in New Delhi. Photo: Handout
Raman Verma, who owns a nearby pharmacy, said he had guessed the vaccine was on its way after spotting "loads of police outside the hospital".
"I went to a nearby temple to seek blessings. When the trucks arrived, we all rushed out to see it," he said.
There was a similar outpouring of joy at the vaccine's arrival in the central city of Bhopal, where a cavalcade of cars and motorbikes spontaneously formed to follow the refrigerated trucks, as crowds of excited onlookers lined the streets.
Despite being the second worst-hit country by the pandemic after the United States, the number of new coronavirus cases per day in India is trending downwards, with it recording 12,584 fresh infections on Monday - its lowest daily tally for seven months.
A health worker carries a box of Covishield vaccine at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri on Thursday. Photo: AFP alt=A health worker carries a box of Covishield vaccine at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri on Thursday. Photo: AFP
Medical staff are not being overwhelmed like they are in the US and Britain, with occupancy rates in Delhi's intensive care units at around 8 per cent of total capacity, while just 12 per cent of the capital's hospital beds reserved for Covid-19 patients are currently being used.
Within a week of inoculations starting to be rolled out, Mumbai plans to be vaccinating 50,000 people per day, with Delhi aiming for twice that number "once we have 1,000 vaccination centres in the city", Dr Garg said.
Professor Nirmal Ganguly, a former head of the Indian Council for Medical Research, said he did not expect "any major glitches" in the vaccination drive's first phase, "apart from, perhaps, the need to manage the crowds".
"The vaccinations are taking place inside big hospitals so there is plenty of space and any allergic reactions can be dealt with easily," he said.
The real test, the professor said, will only come later, once the vaccine roll-out reaches the hundreds of millions of Indians not living in big cities, who are set to receive their jabs - which must be kept refrigerated at all times - in non-hospital settings. How the country meets this huge logistical challenge remains to be seen.
There are also concerns about the government's aim to manage the entire process digitally via its own app, of which there are already several fake versions available for download.
A spokesman for the Delhi government said the app had yet to be launched for the general public, as "it is only available for healthcare workers who are eligible to be vaccinated in the first phase".
CoWIN, which stands for Covid Vaccine Intelligence Work, aims to record the details of all those who are vaccinated and the date on which they should receive a second dose, as well as any side effects they experience and the levels of remaining vaccine stocks.
Health experts are also worried about the efficacy of COVAXIN, as some experts consider the clinical trials rushed and question if it will be possible to closely monitor outcomes for those that receive it.
The All India People's Science Network, which comprises science advocacy groups, said in a statement on its website earlier this month that the government had "shot itself in the foot" by approving COVAXIN.
"Whatever prestige India may gain abroad for an indigenously developed vaccine will be outweighed by the damage caused to the credibility of COVAXIN in particular, and of Indian science, research and regulatory institutions," it said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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