With about 240 million people, India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh—with more people than all of Brazil—has seen a marked decrease in COVID-19 cases since instituting a population-wide ivermectin program. In just several days, the new cases have dropped from 33,531 on April 26, the apex of new daily cases recorded to 18,023 on May 12 based on data from Johns Hopkins University. Officials here know that transcending this crisis will involve therapeutics (population-wide ivermectin, etc.), behavioral and social measures (e.g. isolation for the sick when possible, masks, hand washing, plus more oxygen and supplies etc.), and targeted vaccination. Now for the latter situation, the state government prepares a large procurement of vaccines in an effort, again in combination with the other efforts, to not only control the spread of the virus but reduce the severity for those that eventually become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. Time is of the essence as the country is facing an unprecedented crisis with over 4,000 deaths for a second straight day with a health system on the complete edge. Interestingly, while the death rate in Uttar Pradesh appears to have peaked at 372 on May 7 (and now total daily deaths are on the decline), this is a small fraction of the total deaths in the nation despite its population size—the nation’s most populous. With local vaccine shortages reported, the state is prepared to spend up to $1 billion on vaccines and as part of that process, state officials now meet with representatives from various companies this week, including those from Pfizer for its mRNA-based vaccine and the local distributor of Sputnik V. Apparently, the state’s officials already had pre-bid discussions with local vaccine producers, including Serum Institute of India (licensee of AstraZeneca/Offord as well as Novavax vaccines), Bharat Biotech, and Cadila Healthcare as part of another tender to buy 40 million doses in the next few months. It appears that none of the Chinese vaccine firms were invited to the bid.
