Two days back, Mumbai police busted a baby-selling racket. A year back, fake Amul butter was detected in the market. The Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences has studied and found that spurious drugs in India have a huge market. With the vaccine roll-out, all are gripped with the logistics and fear of the unknown side effects and may be lax on the entering of spurious vaccines in the market. 1.2 billion is a huge number and with what we see prevalent in India, this is a real threat. Vaccine vials must be appropriately coded with QR codes so that any person may be able to check the authenticity and validity. The used vials must be correctly disposed of under the supervision of doctors and not left to the housekeeping staff. Hope this has been implemented and is full proof. The repercussions of failing to do so can only be imagined. Further, since these are temperature sensitive, the vial must have temperature stickers that change colour when exposed to a higher than required temperature. We might say that all vaccines are free, but this may not be the case. We have witnessed the callous way ballot boxes and EVMs were handled.
