The Covid vaccine distribution system in India should change to achieve better coverage, said Devi Shetty, cardiac surgeon and a member of the national task force set up by the Supreme Court to look into the Covid situation in the country. The Centre, he said, should appoint an agency that will procure all doses of Covid vaccines from the manufacturers and distribute those to the state governments and all hospitals in the country to make the drive successful.
“The vaccine distribution system should change. One central agency should procure the vaccines and distribute them to all hospitals across the country,” said Shetty, the chairman and founder of Narayana Health. “Also, no hospital should store a dose for more than three to four days. If they can’t use it, the vaccine should be handed over to another hospital which has more demand but fewer doses. This way more people can be covered,” he said.
Sudipta Mitra, the chief executive of the hospital, said, “In Calcutta, many standalone private hospitals are unable to buy vaccines. Peerless Hospital is yet to get the Covishield consignment it has paid for. “We paid (the Serum Institute of India, the manufacturer of Covishield) Rs 76 lakh for 12,000 doses more than 20 days back but are yet to get any vaccine.”
Shetty said the only way to prevent Covid patients from turning critical in large numbers if a third wave struck was maximising the vaccination coverage. “The Covid third wave should not be as virulent as the second one. It should be like a common cold and that will only be possible if the maximum number of people are vaccinated,” said Shetty.
He said Narayana Health’s Bangalore hospital had around 700 Covid patients at one point but only a few among them who had been fully vaccinated needed to be shifted to the critical care unit.
If children start getting infected in large numbers and need to be admitted to hospital, their parents will have to stay with them. “It will be unfair to send a parent who has not been vaccinated to stay in a Covid ward,” he pointed out.
Shetty said that ideally everyone should be vaccinated against Covid for free but that was not possible because of budgetary constraints. “So, there should be a capping. No private centre should be allowed to charge more than Rs 200 over the cost of procurement,” he said.
