In September this year, even as scientists in India and elsewhere were busy with clinical trials on an effective inoculation against the novel coronavirus, a drug inspector in Odisha seized a large cache of vials labelled as COVID-19 vaccines, from a village 350 km from state capital Bhubaneswar. The seized drug was found to be spurious, perhaps containing nothing more than tap water. “He is a village guy who created the fake drug on his own and named it COVID-19 vaccine. We got a tip-off from our informers, raided the place and seized everything,” drug inspector Sasmita Dehury told Outlook over the phone.
It was a lucky break in a country where manufacturing of spurious medicines is a multi-billion dollar business that puts the lives of millions of people at risk every year. The risk, experts say, has risen manifold with the imminent arrival of a vaccine against the coronavirus, with panic-stricken people eager to get the shot at any cost.
Though government-sponsored studies, conducted thrice in the past 15 years, indicate that only three per...
