India's Covid-19 strategy leader is disappointing 3
Located opposite the parliament building in the capital New Delhi, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was established in 1911, with the main task of focusing on research.
In previous epidemics, India’s National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), which has many infectious disease experts, played a larger role.
Due to its role as a key medical advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Ministry of Health, ICMR is increasingly receiving criticism from independent doctors and scientists, in the context of India being the second largest epidemic area.
Family members of a Covid-19 patient at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, on April 21.
One of the issues that has drawn criticism from the ICMR is its drug recommendations.
Nearly a year after hydroxychloroquine was removed by the US from its Covid-19 treatment regimen, the drug is still in India’s guidelines.
`Doctors across the country started prescribing it, making big pharma happy. In the end, only poor patients suffered,` said Kalantri, a professor at Sevagram’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences
However, Aparna Mukherjee, senior scientist at ICMR, explains that many initial measures appear promising and ICMR’s guidelines are constantly being updated as experimental evidence emerges.
`It’s easy to criticize a decision. However, when you know the drug is likely to be effective, you can’t just because there’s a shortage say don’t use it,` Mukherjee said, adding that
However, criticism directed at ICMR does not stop there, they are also accused of hiding data on Covid-19 and the Delta variant, leaving doctors and experts disoriented.
In April, nearly 300 Indian scientists and medical researchers called on Prime Minister Modi to allow them access to data that could be useful for researching, predicting and preventing the spread of nCoV.
`No one outside the government has access to the ICMR database, perhaps many people in the government do not either. New pandemics can have unpredictable characteristics, but they cannot be controlled.`
ICMR conducted one of the most comprehensive serosurveys last year, including studying the existence of nCoV antibodies in different groups of people.
Due to a lack of critical information about the genomic makeup of local virus strains, along with testing data and immune responses to vaccines, India is left in the dark when it comes to the Delta variant, which was first discovered.
`Detailed data on antibody surveys, clinical severity, demographics and many other aspects are not yet publicly available. Open data sources will facilitate better modeling, better preparation
ICMR scientist Mukherjee corrected that the data is not restricted, anyone who makes a suitable proposal can access it, but did not specify what criteria data access proposals need to meet.
With states easing restrictions even though only 6% of the population has been fully vaccinated, India is said to be at risk of suffering a third wave of Covid-19.
`The scientific community is clearly uneasy with the government’s handling of the pandemic, as well as the ambiguity in the process of consultation, consensus building, data sharing and decision-making,` said Lalit Kant, former leader of the pandemic.
A man bought Remdesivir in Jaipur city, India, in April. Photo: Hindustan Times.
On the front line of the epidemic in Sevagram, Dr. Kalantri is mainly concerned about the poor in rural areas, including many who fall into debt to buy medicine.
Remdesivir is approved for use in treating Covid-19 in the US and some other places, but the World Health Organization (WHO) assesses that there is not enough scientific basis for this method, because Remdesivir has not been proven.
Convalescent plasma therapy has also been on India’s Covid-19 treatment guidelines for many months, even though ICMR’s own research in November 2020 showed little benefit from plasma from people who had been infected.
`I am extremely sad and disappointed,` Kalantri said referring to ICMR, the `brain` of India’s anti-Covid-19 strategy.
Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist and public health expert in New Delhi, assessed that the pandemic has shown India’s failure to improve `weak and non-optimal` health agencies.
`What needs to be addressed is not simply responding to Covid-19, but improving India’s institutions to prepare for the future. That opportunity seems to be gone,` Lahariya said.
