New Delhi: India’s Supreme Court has sharply criticised the federal government over its coronavirus vaccination programme.
\nThe judges asked the government to explain why it was mandatory to register on an app for getting a jab.
\nThe court said this would hamper vaccinations across rural India where internet access is difficult.
\nThe judges also questioned whether federal policy was making individual states compete against each other for vaccines.
\nIndia has administered more than 220 million doses since it began vaccinating in mid-January, but so far only 3% of the population has been fully vaccinated.
\nPrime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has opened up vaccinations for some 960 million eligible Indians without having anything close to the required supply.
\nThe shortage came amid a deadly second Covid wave and warnings of an impending third wave. The wave has since slowed – the number of daily infections has fallen from the peak of over 400,000 last month to 132,788 cases that were recorded in the past 24 hours.
\nThe Supreme Court said that asking people between 18-44 years to pay for their jabs was “arbitrary and irrational”.
\nThe court asked the government to review its vaccination policy and “place on record a roadmap of projected availability of vaccines till 31 December” – the date by which the government is promising to vaccinate the entire adult population.
\nIndia says it aims to ramp up vaccine production and has pledged to produce at least two billion doses between August and December.
\nThere are currently two locally-made vaccines for the coronavirus: Covishield and Covaxin.
\nThe Serum Institute of India (SII) makes Covishield (under licence from AstraZeneca), whilst the second largest producer, Bharat Biotech, makes the locally-developed Covaxin.
\nThe Sputnik V vaccine, which was approved for use in April, is also now available, with three million doses supplied by Russia.
\nOf the eight vaccines currently under production in India, only three have been approved for use – another two are in the early stages of clinical trials and a further three are in late-stage trials.
\nPublic health experts say poor planning, piecemeal procuring and unregulated pricing by the government has turned India’s vaccine drive into a deeply unfair competition for state governments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi: India’s Supreme Court has sharply criticised the federal government over its coronavirus vaccination programme. The judges asked the government to explain why it was mandatory to register on an app for getting a jab. The court said this would hamper vaccinations across rural India where internet access is difficult. The judges also questioned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n