‘ICMR lacks plan to battle coronavirus’

Chennai

He has based his opinion on ICMR chief Balram Bhargav’s statement that it was never planned to vaccinate the country’s total population.

As the virus peaked in the third week of September and as the positive figures are declining now, “it can only be guestimated that around 30 per cent of the nation’s population would have been infected. This for a nation of 1.30 billion people would be around 400 million”, he added.

He also added that the registration of vaccines could be delayed due to the Serum Institute of India’s (SSI) issues with the Chennai volunteer who allegedly developed health issues after being administered a test dose. However, all vaccines are of preventive and not curative measures, he added.

Elaborating further, he said “if the battle against the virus is to be won, then we have to interrupt the chai. This could be a tall order as it involves huge expenditure”.