India seeks vaccine boost with Russian jab deal as Covid cases soar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government touted India as “the pharmacy of the world” not long ago as it exported more than 60m locally made doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus jab globally.

But with ailing Covid-19 patients overwhelming hospitals in Mumbai, New Delhi and other big cities, the government is scrambling to secure more vaccines for domestic use.

Indian drug regulators on Monday granted emergency approval to Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, as daily confirmed Covid-19 infections hit a record high of 185,000. The agreement paved the way both for local production and potential imports of the vaccine.

New Delhi also said it would grant emergency authorisation to any foreign Covid-19 vaccines approved for use in the US, UK, Europe or Japan, waiving the previous requirement for time-consuming local “bridging trials”.

Dr VK Paul, head of India’s vaccine strategy task force, said New Delhi hoped drugmakers such as Pfizer and Moderna would bring their vaccines to India “as soon as possible”.

But experts warned that India’s latest moves were unlikely to spur a big increase in domestic vaccine supplies. The availability of jabs will remain tight for months due to the constrained production capacity of the Serum Institute, the world’s biggest manufacturer of vaccines, which is able to make 2.4m AstraZeneca doses a day, and Russia’s intention to export most of its made-in-India jabs.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund managing overseas sales and production of Sputnik V, has deals with at least five Indian pharmaceutical companies to produce a combined 850m doses per year.

But RDIF has only announced one deal to supply 100m doses to India for domestic use. The remainder is earmarked for export to more than 58 countries that have placed orders for the Russian jab.

 “There is unlikely to be any immediate relief,” said Reuben Abraham, chief executive of IDFC Institute, a Mumbai-based think-tank. “These vaccines will take time to come online.”

Growing public anger over domestic vaccine shortages is one of the most serious challenges facing the Modi government amid a severe second wave of Covid-19 cases.

Gajanan Dhuppe, 53, and his 47-year-old diabetic wife, had confirmed appointments to be inoculated on two separate days at Noida’s Jaypee Hospital near New Delhi.

But the vaccines ran out before their turn on each occasion and hospital officials were uncertain when more stocks would arrive. “The government is lying that there is no shortage,” said Dhuppe, who has hypertension. “I have wasted two days of my leave from work trying to get the vaccine.”

Many other vaccination centres in big cities across the country have been forced to suspend operations in recent days because of a lack of jabs.

India has administered about 108m vaccine doses, or fewer than 8 doses per 100 people since its national vaccine drive began in mid-January, when caseloads were falling steadily.

While many elderly Indians first eligible for the jab were hesitant to take them, demand has surged as case counts rose in recent weeks. Authorities also expanded eligibility on April 1 to anyone over 45.

“Many people who are in ICUs right now were eligible for the vaccine and they never took it,” said Abraham.

Sputnik V is likely to be the first of the new vaccines available in India later this month or in early May, albeit in limited qualities. But production in India is unlikely to start before July, according to a note published Emkay Global, a financial services firm.

Until then, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, an Indian drugmaker, aims to import Sputnik doses into India once pricing issues are resolved. RDIF said it had a fixed price of $9.75 per dose for the two-dose vaccine, far more than the $2 per dose India pays the Serum Institute for the AstraZeneca jab. RDIF did not respond to a request for comment on pricing or the proportion of doses that would be exported.

Kirill Dmitriev, head of RDIF, said on Tuesday that the fund would soon announce “a couple more” production deals in India, and that production of Sputnik V in the country would reach 50m doses per month “by the end of the summer”.

But the companies partnering with RDIF have limited vaccine experience and will need time to establish production lines to make Sputnik V, according to analysts. “There is a lot of tech transfer, then you have to get a manufacturing licence . . . it’s not an easy thing, there are many processes involved,” said an official at one of the companies.

New Delhi’s sudden push to procure vaccines came as many feared a worsening caseload was imminent following mass political rallies and religious festivals. Maharashtra, the Indian state that is home to the country’s financial capital Mumbai, has imposed an effective lockdown for the remainder of April as Covid-19 cases surge.

Dr Swarup Sarkar, a member of the Indian Council of Medical Research’s Covid-19 task force, said the country was dealing with the consequences of not adopting an aggressive vaccination strategy.

Instead, New Delhi only planned to vaccinate about 300m people considered at higher risk of mortality, with vaccine supplies assessed accordingly.

“India made a strategic mistake,” said Sarkar. “It was never part of the government plan to achieve 70 per cent immunity before mutation occurs.”