Documenting 21st Century - India and the World

    We have habit of projecting our failures as achievements. Recently our political Govt has ordered our Military & DRDO to supplement our health system because existing civilian health system is losing the battle against the pandemic. While its a national duty of military to follow orders from political government & do everything necessary to help save people's lives, but i see there is a big problem. Our Defense minister full of nationalism hails our military for running hospitals, building oxygen plants, delivering medical supplies across the country.  But i have very straight & simple question - Why civilian institutions & departments are not working?  Every country in the world knows that Covid-19 pandemic has come in several waves with come countries seeing as much as 3 waves, with latter more deadlier than preceding ones. I know that virus came from China & India had little time to prepare for pandemic last year. But what has our Govt done...

India has been requesting US for lifting Export restrictions on certain raw materials needed for vaccine production. Yesterday US State Deptt gave a scathing response regarding export restrictions - "US has special responsibility towards American people". These words are more than sufficient to gauge America's take on the situation. Recall that US has banned exports of raw materials after invoking defense production act in February. The goal was to mobilize all resources for American national vaccination program which now is going quite well. But this has created problems for India and globally. SII, Indian company which is the largest vaccine maker in the world is facing difficulty in ramping its vaccine production due to shortage of raw materials. SII is responsible for manufacturing vaccines for use in India as well as dozens of other countries. The vaccines are provided to foreign countries on commercial basis, humanitarian grants as well as Covax initiative.  Americ...

I have some questions about new vaccine policy. I read press release by the Govt and i could not understand some things. If i have misunderstood any details, please clarify & correct me on them. The press release is available here . 1. What is "open market" pricing? Will states have any power of negotiations and/or regulation with the vaccine makers on vaccine prices? Will open market pricing be same across all states or vary from state to state? Does order of 250 Rs per dose centrally regulated vaccine prices in private hospitals stands repealed? Can states regulate vaccine prices in private hospitals? 2. Why State Governments are forced by central Govt to procure vaccines at open market prices? India is a cooperative federalism nation model with center and state government both sharing power structure. Can center direct states to buy vaccines on market pricing while center itself buy vaccines at regulated & negotiated pricing?  Central Govt and State Govt spending ...

India's surge in Covid cases is just like Brazil. There was interesting case study of Brazil's city of Manaus with 2 Million population (read 1 & 2 ). The region was hit hard in first wave and had high Seroprevalence last year. Then the cases went down as herd immunity got into effect. But few months later, there was another surge of Covid cases. Same thing is happening in India's resurgence of virus after we had high seroprevalence from first wave of virus. The virus had overwhelmingly spread in cities like Mumbai & Delhi in the first wave as was indicated by various Sero surveys. In Mumbai as much as 60%-75% of slum population was seropositive while in Delhi 56% of population was seropositive.  In rural villages, 69% of population was found seropositive in first ICMR survey conducted last year. I have explained in my previous articles that much of the Indian population lives in poverty and Covid control measures like social distancing, hand hygiene, sanitation...

Recently, Indian company SII CEO Adar poonawaala said that SII is under severe pressure to meet production requirements and facing problems with British firm Astrazeneca due to delays in international obligations. Astrazeneca Covid-19 vaccine is originally created by British Pharma company Astrazeneca and SII is in joint venture with British company. While British company is behind the development & IP creation of vaccine, SII is the manufacturer of vaccine that is producing vaccines in India for domestic use in India as well as for parent British company for foreign exports. SII is also part of Covax project that is meant to supply vaccines to poor countries across the world.  SII was shipping millions of doses of Covid vaccines worldwide until recently. But a new Covid wave has emerged in India due to which Govt has put some restrictions on vaccine exports. The constraints and problems regarding Covax program and globalism of vaccines is clear. Few companies have the cont...

I wrote several articles on Covid-19 pandemic in India last year. This article is about more update on the present situation of pandemic in India. In February & early march, i read several reports in news media, including in western media about mystery regarding flattening of curve in India and low Covid-19 death rates compared to rest of the world. These reports missed several critical elements which i will explain in this article. I will also give a brief report on situation of vaccines we are using in India right now and also an international perspective on how vaccines remain unavailable to developing nations despite the world in unprecedented crisis of this pandemic. Finally, i will look into the mysterious second Covid-19 wave in India and some interesting things which needs attention of the scientific community. India's low case counts and low death rates - How and why we missed Covid deaths? - Is it really possible to miss hundreds of thousands of deaths? - Putting sta...