Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has once again lashed out at the central government for not having a vaccine to fight the coronavirus disease which has affected over three million people in India.
“A fair and inclusive Covid vaccine access strategy should have been in place by now. But there are still no signs of it. GOI’s unpreparedness is alarming,” Gandhi tweeted.
He also attached his previous tweet on the topic.
This comes a day after he hit out at the Centre over the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) latest warning on economic contraction amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Gandhi had said on Twitter that “distractions through media will not help the poor”.
“RBI has now confirmed what I have been warning for months,” the Wayanad MP tweeted on Wednesday morning along with a news report.
The Congress leader also provided few suggestions to the government which includes “Government needs to: Spend more, not lend more. Give money to the poor, not tax cuts to industrialists. Restart economy by consumption.”
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had said on Tuesday that three vaccine candidates are the frontrunners in the country.
“Three Covid-19 vaccines are ahead in the race in India. Serum Institute’s vaccine is in phase 2(B) & phase 3 trials and Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila’s vaccines have completed phase 1 trial,” Professor (Dr) Balram Bhargava, Director General of ICMR had said.
The second phase trial of Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University, which would be manufactured by Serum Institute of India, began in Pune on Wednesday with the vaccine candidate administered to two volunteers at Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical College.
Dr Sanjay Lalwani, Medical Director of Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical Hospital and Research Centre, said that five volunteers were tested for RT-PCR and antibodies and reports of three showed they have anti-bodies and vaccine was administered to two volunteers.
