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HomeNews‘Robust mechanism needed to check pilferage & black-marketing of Covid vax’

‘Robust mechanism needed to check pilferage & black-marketing of Covid vax’

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By Ashish Srivastava New Delhi, Dec 19 : As India inches closer to the massive national Covid-19 immunisation drive, the necessity to ensure that vaccines reach the people in safe and uncompromised state has become crucial. The huge gap in demand and supply of Covid vaccines has made experts wary of pilferage and infiltration by counterfeits once they hit the market shelves.
Lalit Kant, former head of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said that the vaccine is a commodity which is currently sought after by more than 7 billion people around the world, a situation which possibly triggers many kinds of mischiefs.
“The difference between demand and supply right now is unimaginable. And whenever this happens, a lot of mischiefs follow. There is a strong possibility for black-marketing, pilferage and infiltration by spurious vaccines in the market,” he guesstimated.
“We have seen such a situation arising due to the demand-supply gap. Many fake medicines are already being sold in the market,” Kant added.
Earlier this month, the Interpol had warned law enforcement agencies across the globe that organised criminal networks could try to advertise and sell fake Covid-19 vaccines physically and on the internet.
S. Swaminathan, COO, GS1 India, which provides universally unique barcode numbers, concurred with Kant and said that there are high chances of spurious products entering the supply chain. However, he suggested that real-time monitoring to track and trace vaccines from manufacturing to end user can rule out such possibilities.

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