India’s platforms have to be quick to respond to new types of requirements of vaccines: Dr Paul

Dr VK Paul, Member-Health, NITI Aayog and Covid Task Force chief has said at the CII Partnership Summit that in the context of emerging pandemics, India’s platforms have to be resilient and quick to be able to respond to new types of requirements of vaccines.

Dr Paul’s statement has come at a time when the Omicron variant has been spreading in over 60 countries including India, however, its spread in India is moderate and mild.

Dr Paul is of the view that the pandemic seems to be confined to particular regions and due to this, its transmission is low and moderate.

Talking about India’s preparedness to deal with any kind of emerging situation, he said that there is a potential scenario that our vaccines may become ineffective in emerging situations.

“In the wake of the last three weeks of living with Omicron, we have seen how such doubts have come up. Some of them may be genuine. We still do not have the final picture," Dr Paul said.

He added that there is a need for the country that it has to be sure about having vaccine platforms that are adaptable quickly. “This possibility that we need to tweak for us to remain in the game, so to say, with changing nature of the variants remains valid," Dr Paul said.

Dr Paul is of the view that India should be ready to create a vaccine that is using the same platform but is now targeted to the variant of the day.

“We have to be ready to be able to have a situation where resiliently we are able to modify the vaccines as they require. This may not happen every three months, but this could happen every year perhaps," he said.