Delivering Covid vaccine a governance challenge, India should take lead

One critical challenge will be storage and transportation. Some of the vaccines that use the new messenger RNA technology will need to be stored at subzero temperatures

The pressures of the pandemic have fallen hardest on developing countries with weak governments. They’re struggling to determine who is being infected and why, and to mitigate the economic impact of lockdowns and social distancing measures. If dealing with Covid-19 is stressing those states, however, the effort required to end the pandemic may exhaust them.

Speaking to the Financial Times this week, the Indian vaccine manufacturer Adar Poonawalla — whose Serum Institute of India plans to produce a billion doses of an eventual vaccine, far in excess of any of its competitors — warned that vaccinating “everyone on this planet” poses