The destruction, disruption and dread unleashed by the unprecedented pandemic of COVID-19 across the world seems to end soon with several vaccine candidates reporting very encouraging results in late-stage trials. While this is a welcoming news that the world has been yearning for, the challenge of producing, distributing and administering the vaccine to the population in the shortest possible time is formidable, more so for a country like India given our population, geographical spread and skewed health infrastructure across urban and rural areas and between the states. The Government of India formed the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) with Dr. V K Paul, Member, NITI Aayog as the Chair, which is responsible for prioritizing the vaccine and also in its procurement and administration.
In this context, the NEGVAC has invited the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) to help assess the private sector’s capabilities and capacities for inoculation and distribution of the vaccine. FICCI, in partnership with EY, held stakeholder consultations and through this strategy paper aims to highlight the role and extent of private sector participation in supporting the government to accelerate the process of targeted vaccination across the country.
Private hospitals have been the bedrock of capacity and capability serving greater than 70% of bed capacity and ~60% of inpatient care in India. In the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, private hospitals have dedicated up to 40%-80% of their bed capacity for treating COVID-19 patients and supplemented government efforts of scaling up testing by contributing to 45% of the testing capacity in India. Given the scale, complexity and timeline of the program for mass-inoculation against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, private players can significantly augment government’s capacity across the value chain of vaccine distribution and administration.
To assess the private sector’s role in inoculation of 60%-70% of the population in a two-year timeline with inoculation of prioritized groups (30 crore or 22% of population[1]) in the next eight months, this report focuses on the following:
- Assessment of demand and supply of healthcare resources for vaccine administration.
- Assessment of capacity and intent of private players in supporting the mass-inoculation program by looking at the findings from the dipstick survey involving 264 private healthcare participants.
- Potential engagement models between private and public sector across different stages of the value chain and private sector players’ key role towards the same.
- Role of the private sector from the learnings drawn from other countries.