Deve Gowda writes to PM Modi suggesting free vaccine for all, trial for 12-15 year olds

Janata Dal-Secular supremo and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda on Sunday wrote a letter to PM Narendra Modi, offering suggestions to handle the current COVID-19 crisis that has engulfed the country.

In the letter, Deve Gowda sought decentralisation of health administration and COVID-19 management, deadline on vaccination drive, focus on districts and taluk and not just cities, and vaccination trials for children within 12 to 15 age group. He also said that "if the government decides to give vaccines free to all citizens, that would be a great humanitarian gesture.”

“This is a national crisis and we need to fight it as one nation. We should support all constructive measures taken to save lives and reduce suffering,” Gowda said in a tweet sharing the letters.

Earlier, former PM Manmohan Singha and Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi had also written separate letters to the Prime Minister offering suggestions to curb the spread of the deadly virus and scape up vaccination in India.

India's Coronavirus crisis

India has been reeling under the deadly second wave of COVID-19, logging in over 3 lakh cases daily, which is the highest in the world. The country recorded 3,49,691 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the highest single-day spike since the onset of the pandemic. 2,767 people have died due to the disease in the last 24 hours.

As India battles the unprecedented health crisis as the COVID-19 second wave grips the country, global support in the form of oxygen supplies, ventilators, raw material for vaccines, PPE kits and oxygen concentrators have started pouring in. On Sunday, the United States agreed to send essential raw materials to India required for manufacturing anti-Coronavirus vaccines.