Can roll out new pandemic vaccine in 150 days: Dr Arora

Nagpur: India has scientific capacity, manufacturing strength, and regulatory preparedness to develop and roll out a new vaccine within 150 days if a fresh pandemic emerges, said Dr Narendra Kumar Arora, senior public health expert and former member of the national Covid vaccine task force.Arora, currently president of AIIMS Bilaspur (HP) and executive director of INCLEN Trust International, said experience during Covid-19 has altered India's pandemic response capabilities. Arora was a key member of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI), which guided vaccine policy during Covid-19 pandemic.
"India no longer starts from scratch," Arora said during Maharashtra's first Research Day event at AIIMS Nagpur on Monday. "India has multiple vaccine platforms ready for rapid adaptation. These include mRNA, DNA, viral vector, inactivated virus, live attenuated, protein subunit, and virus-like particle platforms. Once the pathogen is identified, the scientific groundwork is already there. You only need to plug in the new antigen," he said. "Today, India is world's largest vaccine producer, supplying most global doses at costs far lower compared to west," he said. Stressing that biomedical research is not just a health priority but a matter of economic stability, Arora said, "A pandemic can cripple the national economy overnight. Research capacity is as strategic as defence preparedness."Arora noted during Covid-19, India did not import a single dose, underlining self-reliance in biomedical manufacturing. "India does not lack intellectual capital. Earlier, a conducive ecosystem was missing, that gap has been filled now," he said while highlighting govt's push to strengthen research ecosystems, including large-scale funding through national research initiatives, particularly in biomedical sciences.