Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wrote a two-page letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, highlighting five suggestions for tackling the second and more severe Covid-19 wave in India.
In the letter, Dr Singh emphasised on the vaccination programme and urged PM Modi to focus on the percentage of the population vaccinated and allow states more flexibility to plan vaccination rollouts.
His first suggestion was to publicise Covid vaccine orders placed for the next six months. “The government should publicise what are the firm orders for doses placed on different vaccine producers and accepted for delivery over the next six months. If we want to vaccinate a target number in this period, we should place enough orders in advance so that producers can adhere to an agreed schedule of supply,” said the ex-PM.
After this, he suggested that PM Modi’s government indicate how the expected supply would be distributed across the states based on “a transparent formula”. “The central government could retain 10 per cent for distribution based on emergency needs, but other than that, states should have a clear signal of likely availability so that they can plan their roll out,” he said.
The third piece of advice was to give states more flexibility in aspects like defining frontline workers and deciding who is to be vaccinated, even if they are under 45 years of age. “For example, states may want to designate school teachers, bus, three-wheeler and taxi drivers, municipal and panchayat staff, and possibly lawyers who have to attend courts as frontline workers. They can then be vaccinated even if they are below 45,” wrote Dr Singh in the letter.
He then advised the PM to proactively support vaccine producers to expand their manufacturing facilities rapidly by providing them with funds and other concessions. “I believe this is the time to invoke the compulsory licensing provisions in the law, so that a number of companies are able to produce the vaccines under a licence. This, I recall, had happened earlier in the case of medicines to deal with the HIV/AIDS disease,” he said, also supporting his point with the example of Israel, which has invoked compulsory licensing.
Finally, in light of limited supply of domestic vaccines, Dr Singh suggested that any vaccine that has been cleared for use by credible authorities such as the European Medical Agency or the USFDA should be allowed to be imported without insisting on domestic bridging trials. Those who would opt for such vaccines should be disclosed of this fact. He assured that experts believe such a relaxation is justified in case of an emergency.
“I am certain that with the right policy design, we can do much better and very quickly,” he added.