Use patent law to terminate monopoly on vax production: CM Kejriwal to PM

New Delhi: As the Capital seems to climb out of the oxygen crisis, it is teetering close to a vaccine crisis now with the Delhi government already having closed all Covaxin centres in the city for lack of doses. Amid this, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the Centre should share the vaccine formula of the two manufacturers with other capable pharmaceutical companies to scale up production in the country.

In his letter to Modi, Kejriwal said the entire country can be provided a "safety cover" by allowing more companies to manufacture the vaccines on a war footing ahead of the third wave of the pandemic and that the Centre also has powers to terminate the monopoly on vaccine production through the patent law.

The CM said that Covid cases in the city are now starting to reduce and the second wave seemed to be subsiding. "The lockdown was also successful because of everyone's support. In the past few days, we have also increased the Oxygen beds," he said, before going to stress the need for increased vaccine production.

There are two vaccine makers in the country currently — Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India — which are manufacturing Covaxin and Covishield respectively. The two vaccine manufacturers can be given royalty from the profit of other companies for the use of their original formulas, Kejriwal said.

"Providing vaccines to the whole country through two companies only is not possible. I request you to grant permission for mass production of the vaccines," he wrote in his letter to Modi.

"The two vaccine companies in the country are currently producing around six-seven crore doses per month. At this rate, it will take two years to vaccinate everyone. Who knows how many waves of COVID will pass us by then and what will be the extent of the destruction. The Centre should take the vaccine formula from these two companies and provide it to all those companies that can safely manufacture the vaccines," Kejriwal said.

"We have excellent industrialists, pharmaceutical companies that are the largest in the world and the best scientists. I believe that if given a chance, they will extend their full cooperation," he added.

"Delhi is facing a shortage of vaccines. Some states have not even started inoculation because they do not have the required number of doses. The vaccine shortage has become a big challenge for the country," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo said.

Delhi has started inoculating people against the viral disease at a rapid pace and currently, around 1.25 lakh doses of the vaccines are being administered daily, the chief minister said, adding that this will be scaled up to over three lakh doses in the coming days. "We aim to vaccinate everyone in Delhi in the next three months, but the shortage of vaccines is a major problem," he said.

Delhi reported a little over 12,000 new cases on Tuesday with 347 more deaths. The daily positivity dropped to around 17 per cent.