India Inc declares War against COVID

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The biggest millennial catastrophe called corona virus is bringing Indian industries to open their hearts and wallets to help the country fight this pandemic.

 

Companies across India are retooling to manufacture medical equipment for hospitals and check the spread of the new coronavirus.

Maruti Suzuki tied up with AgVa Healthcare, an existing certified manufacturer of ventilators, to strengthen India's battle against COVID-19.

The World Health Organization alerted last week that the "chronic global shortage of personal protective gear" is among the most urgent threats to the virus containment efforts.

For a country, that has been bitterly divided by CAA and NRC in the past few months, the fight against the novel coronavirus has become something of a unifying power.

Reliance Foundation Hospital, in collaboration with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), has set up a dedicated 100 bedded COVID-19 centre at Seven Hills Hospital, Mumbai.

Meanwhile, Tata committed Rs 1500 crore to fight COVID-19 disease, which it noted was one of the "toughest challenges the human race will face".

If there's one thing that experts across sectors accept is this: We need to ramp up production of testing kits and protective gear for healthcare workers.

Long term strategies

Lockdowns are useful only for stalling the virus and buying time to use more targeted and thorough measures. So, what exactly should be the next step for India? According to Dr Vishal Rao, a cancer specialist in the next 21 days, India will need to be ready for significant steps. "If we delay now, we are going to hit thousands of SSE (Super Spread events) in multiple clusters across the country," he adds.

According to Rao, what we need to think now is a week wise plan.

"Week 1: The government must ensure that we have enough number of testing kits and the Personal Protection Equipments (PPE) to assist people with extensive screening. We should manufacture enough hydroxychloroquine to be able to give weekly mass prophylaxis for possibly the entire population for seven weeks if necessary," says Rao.

For Week 2, he adds that it is essential to hunt down every positive case. "This would need- home visits during lockdown to track with trained health workers.

For week 3, before you open lockdown PPE to be provided to every hospital to get ready to deal with patients," he concludes.

According to Rao, currently, no hospital has stock. "China has lifted the ban on the export of three-layer fabric used in PPE. Airlift supplies at the earliest. The government should assist in expedited Clinical Trials on Antivirals, hydroxychloroquine, and novel treatments like Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Immunotherapy Towards achieving this," he explains.

Therefore, according to him, Indian companies would need to gear up for

  1. Supporting Hospitals with PPE through their CSR funds as the state governments will not be able to provide this to health care workers

  2. Help build databases of volunteer state and district wise for social outreach during a crisis using disaster management strategies

  3. Create Crowdfund platforms to provide food, shelter and medicines for the poor and tie-up with NGOs.

  4. Hackathons - to crowdsource ideas and share in common platforms.

  5. Maintain leadership within their company to ensure people remain home but continue to be productive.

Local Leaders

Many small businesses also say that they are keen to do their bit to fight the pandemic. "We are a company that makes handmade shibori products. We have six women who work for us from the neighbouring village. In light of the present situation, they have had no work. We decided to help them by asking them to make cloth masks," says Sarah Thomas who run Umoya Designs in Bengaluru.

Let's Do it Right

But getting products to mass-volume numbers in a short time is an arduous task. Dr Jagdish Chaturvedi, Founder and CEO, HiiiH Innovations Pvt Ltd, points out that Indian companies can tweak their businesses. "For instance, with some companies who have mechanical pumps and airway devices are looking to evolve those into low-cost ventilators," he explains.

He also adds that they have created a database of Indian startups who are working to address the challenges created by COVID19. "The list is available here http://www.hiiih.in/index.php/list-of-startups/ or can be accessed through www.hiiih.in," explains Chaturvedi.

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Challenges

According to Chaturvedi, for devices that are not under the list of regulated devices by DCGI and are simple mechanical or surgical tools, there are less manufacturing hurdles. But for those that fall under the supervised medical device list, the process to get DCGI approvals are unpredictable and depend on a case to case processing.

This can add many months to a year before manufacturing and sales can be initiated. Sophisticated technologies such as implants or balloon catheters have limited manufacturing infrastructure in India and often need to be manufactured outside and imported/assembled/labels in India.

We must do all we can to reach the end of this crisis.

But isn't the response of businesses as well as authorities, uncoordinated and at times more like a jumble?

According to Prashant Yadav Professor, INSEAD, while automotive and other conglomerate businesses in India are doing their part in trying to repurpose production lines to make ventilators, PPE, and other critical supplies on a war footing, hospitals and labs are yet to start large scale meaningful efforts-such as reconfiguring care delivery to telemedicine for all, or free COVID-19 testing for all. Those would be significant contributions of the healthcare industry to fulfil their social contract.

Dr Edmond Fernandes, CEO, CHD Group, Mangaluru, seconds his views. "Indian companies need to work with NGOs having proven track record and not try to do things on their own as they lack grass-root connect and bandwidth. Organisations can work with NGOs to strengthen the supply chain in PPEs to healthcare workers and also civilians, operate mobile vegetable vans through NGOs, operate Mobile Pharmacy, Mobile Healthcare Units for rapid testing and screening of cases," concludes Fernandes.

It's too quick to assume that India will witness a COVID-19 crisis comparable to Italy or US dimensions. But it makes sense to ration supplies and create more supply lines, because there is a global shortage, and nations are struggling.