The Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) has initiated the process of procuring Johnson and Johnson’s (J&J) single dose Covid-19 vaccine from the European Union Covid-19 task force. The association, which represents medium and small hospitals, expects to get one million doses.

AHPI director general Girdhar Gyani stated that the association is trying to procure J&J jabs through an authorised private agency in India from the European Union's quota for lower and middle income countries. “We have initiated the process to procure J&J Covid vaccine from the EU Council Covid task force, Brussels. An authorised private agency in India is doing this for us. The agency will also apply for an import license in India,” he said.

Gyani says J&J’s vaccine is most suitable for a vast country like India specially in tier II and tier III areas. “It is a viral vector vaccine which requires only one dose as opposed to 2 doses by most other vaccines. It does not need to be stored frozen. This is most suitable for far flung areas, specially the tier II and tier III areas, which face challenges regarding vaccine hesitancy, storage, among others,” he added.

J&J’s vaccine has been granted emergency use authorization by the USA FDA. Medium and small-sized hospitals have got together under the AHPI umbrella to procure vaccines on better terms from manufacturers While large chains including Max Healthcare, and Indraprastha Apollo managed to get supplies directly from the vaccine makers, medium and small-sized hospitals such as Narayana Health and Indian Spinal Injuries Centre faced a lot of challenges procuring vaccine doses.