The ‘Bestseller’ book, India’s Vaccine Growth Story- From Cowpox to Vaccine Maitri’ written by Dr. Sajjan Singh Yadav is to be published in 20 Indian Languages. This will help in spreading the story of India’s global vaccine supremacy to every nook and corner of the country.
Dr. Yadav is a researcher and a bureaucrat. He is an officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and is currently an Additional Secretary in the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. He has served the government in diverse sectors including finance, health, nutrition, water, sanitation, food, public distribution, urban development, municipal administration, information and publicity, art, culture, tourism, and commercial taxes. He earned his Doctorate in Public Health from the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Vaccines are the most potent weapon in the fight against infectious diseases. They have helped us in preventing lakhs of deaths every year due to infectious diseases. We have been able to eliminate dreaded diseases like smallpox and polio due to vaccines. Efforts to eradicate more diseases through vaccines are in full swing.
Following this ancient ‘mantra’, India has been providing low-cost drugs and vaccines globally for the last four decades. India now meets 62 percent of the worldwide demand for vaccines. It is the only developing country among the top 10 vaccine exporters and has the largest global manufacturing capacity for the WHO’s prequalified vaccine production. About 77 percent of the vaccines produced in the country are exported to more than 170 countries. India meets 90 percent of the WHO’s demand for measles and 40–70 percent for the DPT and BCG vaccines.
The book has captured the 225 years’ journey of vaccines starting from 1796 when English physician Edward Jenner discovered the vaccine for smallpox, the first vaccine in modern medicine, till the advanced vaccines developed to fight COVID-19. It also narrates the stories of Indian ‘Teekadaars’ who used to inoculate people against smallpox thousands of years before the discovery of vaccines by the West.
The book narrates several fascinating stories behind the development of vaccines the world over and also provides the readers with a spread of diverse and topical issues surrounding vaccines. Asides, it delves into many novel concepts such as vaccine diplomacy, vaccine economy, vaccine equity, vaccine nationalism, and vaccine leadership. The book educates the readers on how SARS-CoV-2 emerged, leading to the development of COVID-19 vaccines at an unprecedented pace. Future challenges that may emerge for vaccinology have been discussed too.
The book discusses India’s ‘Vaccine Maitri’ at length. This initiative of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi established the credibility of India as a reliable vaccine producer and enhanced India’s world standing. It has also captured the “world’s largest vaccination drive” undertaken by India against COVID-19. It also captures the social impediments faced during inoculation drives in India, including administrative complacency and vaccine hesitancy among people, are addressed.
The book has been published in English by Penguin Random House. Besides the bookstores all over the country and abroad, the book is available online at https://www.amazon.in/Indias-Vaccine-Growth-Story-Cowpox/dp/0143461184. The book was released last year by Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Finance Minister of India. The Hindi version of the book entitled ‘भारत की वैक्सीन विकास गाथा’ was published this year by the National Book Trust. It was launched by Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Hon’ble Union Health, and Family Welfare Minister.
In addition, the book has been published in Telugu while the Tamil and Malayalam versions are almost ready for publication. The book is also being translated for publication in Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Dogri, Nepali, and other prominent Indian languages.
