BENGALURU: By early 2021, we should have some good news on a COVID-19 vaccine, said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organization, on Wednesday.
"It will be a big challenge to scale up and allocate it fairly around the world without letting the rich countries corner the limited doses," she, however, cautioned. She was speaking at the valedictory of the XV International Conference on Public Policy & Management hosted by the Centre for Public Policy at IIM Bengaluru.
"But India is in a good position because many companies are working on vaccine development, either on their own or in collaboration and the country is a manufacturing hub for vaccines,” she said, adding that planning is required for adult immunization programmes.
Dr Swaminathan said USD 31 billion would be needed for vaccine distribution alone.
COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities and proved to be a learning opportunity for us to improve resilience and strengthen public health systems, she said.
The pandemic has shown up missing links in primary health care in India. “Health is not only about treating diseases. It covers food, sanitation, water, housing, risk factors like alcohol and tobacco. Where there is devolution of power, there is community participation and sustainable response,” she explained.
She called for rights-based public health laws that have clear communication and command structures, empowering states to create rules and set aside budgets for public health preparedness.
She was of the opinion that the pandemic will have a definite impact on diseases like TB, cancer and malaria.
"There have been many warnings for pandemics and health emergencies... Unless we have a system of strong surveillance, it can quickly go out of hand. The Integrated Disease Service Programme (ISDP) in India helps to have surveillance at the district level and below. What we do not have is public health cadre devoted not just to detection and response but also prevention, management, training and capacity building,” she said.
Dr Swaminathan said timely and accurate data on mortality and disease prevalence should be among the top priorities for the government.
“Investments should increase at primary healthcare centres so that healthy life expectancy can be addressed, universal health coverage should be provided and cadres of health workers should be trained and incentivized,” she said. Investments in research and development in health systems should also increase, she added.