The Centre on Friday said the issue of granting legal protection to Indian vaccine manufacturers is under watch, a day after reports said Pune’s Serum Institute of India has requested the Indian government to extend legal protection. Niti Aayog (health) member VK Paul said, “The issue of indemnity has come up in the context of foreign companies raising the demand. In principle, they expect us to indemnify from legal suits as they are protected in other countries too. We have also checked with other countries and the World Health Organization. This appears to be the fact that they are protected legally protected in other countries.”
Dr Paul said, “Bharat Biotech’s trial will not take much time. Zydus Cadila’s vaccine too will come for licence soon. When it comes, we will have more insight into the matter as this vaccine has already been tested on children.”On being asked whether Pfizer — with which India’s agreement is nearing finalisation — will be considered for children between the age of 12 and 15 years as the UK has approved the vaccine for children, Dr Paul said India has its own vaccines being readied for children. He also said, “We have to understand that the child cohort is not a small cohort. When we are talking about children, we are talking about at least 13-14 crore population and to cater to them, we will need 26-28 crore doses. So we will have to make a decision based on how many doses of what vaccines are available.”
