Fake COVID-19 vaccines: scams hampering the vaccination drive in India and possibly other countries

ABSTRACT

India is executing a mass vaccination program to restrict the predicted third wave of COVID-19. However, fake COVID-19 vaccines have emerged as a major challenge amid the vaccination drive in India. This article highlights the loopholes and measures to restrict the fake COVID-19 vaccination scams. Such activities have put the genuinity of vaccination certificates under scanner besides putting public health at risk and instigating vaccine hesitancy. Hence, the Government of India needs to take stringent actions such as complete take-over of COVID-19 vaccine procurement and free immunization. Furthermore, the public needs to remain vigilant and check vaccination certificates immediately after being vaccinated. Such efforts on the part of the government and public can completely restrict fake vaccinations.

KEYWORDS:

• SARS-CoV-2
• COVID-19
• vaccination
• scams
• fake vaccine
• India

India has barely recuperated from the second wave of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), that reached a peak of 0.41 million cases (300 per million) on May 6, 2021.^1–3 It is currently preparing to mitigate the predicted third wave of COVID-19 in the coming months.⁴ To avert the subsequent waves of the COVID-19 in the nation, in part linked to emerging variants of concern such as the Delta (B.1.617.2) and Delta plus (B.1.617.2.1), among others such as the variants of interest;⁵ the Government of India is executing the mass vaccination program with dual-dose vaccines Covishield (AstraZeneca/Oxford), Covaxin (BBV152 A, B, C), and Sputnik V (Gam-Covid-Vac).⁶ So far, the country has delivered 400 million doses to its population.⁷ However, a big challenge has been unleashed amid the mass COVID-19 vaccination drive in the form of fake vaccines.

Apart from enduing the risks to the health and life of the public, the fake vaccine inoculations in the country may lead to a high rate of vaccine hesitancy which is currently a cause of significant concern in various countries, including India.⁸ The incidence of the fake vaccination occurred recently when a Member of Parliament from Kolkata city of West Bengal state was vaccinated with a fake COVID-19 vaccine.⁹ This article highlights the plausible loopholes entailing the fake COVID-19 vaccination and suggests solutions to restrain these scams.

In West Bengal and Maharashtra states, around three thousand people have been vaccinated by the fake COVID-19 vaccines (distilled water, saline, glucose, and some antibiotic agents, e.g. Amikacin Sulfate).⁹ The fraudsters have generally pasted the labels of Covishield (AstraZeneca/Oxford) or Covaxin (BBV152 A, B, C) on the vials of an antibiotic injection used for curing bacterial infections. As the COVID-19 vaccines administered in these instances were fake, the beneficiaries did not receive any vaccination message on their registered mobile number. As per the directives of the Government of India, to avail the facility of the COVID-19 vaccine, all beneficiaries have to register on the CoWIN app portal with a valid identity card and mobile number. After the vaccine inoculation, the beneficiary usually gets a message of successful COVID-19 vaccination and a link to download the vaccination certificate.

As per the new vaccination policy applicable from June 21, 2021, the Government of India would procure 75% of vaccines from manufacturers and provide them free of cost to the states for everyone above the age of 18 years. However, a 25% share would remain with private organizations, and private hospitals will not charge more than Indian Rupees (₹) 150 (~US$2, July 16, 2021) per dose as a service fee over the vaccine cost.

As per the government’s share of 75% procurement, the free vaccine is available to beneficiaries at various government hospitals, community health centers, and primary health centers, among others. Nowadays, the beneficiary possessing a valid identity card can directly visit the government center to take a vaccine shot as per the Government of India. The registration is done at the respective vaccination center on the online portal (CoWIN or Aarogya Setu) for the COVID-19 vaccination. After getting vaccinated, the beneficiaries receive a message on their registered mobile number.

There is no chance of fake vaccination at the government centers as all the COVID-19 vaccines are administered free of cost. The issue of fake COVID-19 vaccines is associated with the 25% (private organizations) share of vaccines monitored by the respective state governments. Many fake organizers can accomplish the fake vaccination within a private vaccination camp and inoculate the people by taking ample money, between ₹1000 and ₹2000 per dose (US$13.45–26.90) from the beneficiaries. The concept behind the fake vaccination program is to earn money in illicit ways, besides harming the public, as they are administered with some other agents. In one incident, the Hiranandani society of Mumbai was given the Covishield vaccine (AstraZeneca/Oxford) at a camp by charging them ₹1,260 (US$16.91). However, vaccine certificates generated after the COVID-19 vaccination mentioned different places, timing, and dates, after which the society members approached the police. The same group of fraudsters had organized various vaccination camps in the city, including Thane, Borivali, Bhoiwada, Kandivali, Andheri, Khar, and Samatanagar; and has administered bogus vaccines to around 2,000 people in the city of Mumbai. Same as Mumbai city, the fake vaccinators have administered about 1500 doses of fake vaccines in the Kolkata city of India.

The use of vaccination certificates to mitigate COVID-19 in India and other countries has been described earlier;^10–12 however, the Government of India needs to take rigorous actions as the validity and genuineness of these certificates have come under the scanner due to some illegal and fake COVID-19 vaccination groups. The Government of India has initiated a step to link the Indian passport of the fully vaccinated people on the CoWIN application for its use during international travel for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics (July 23-August 8, 2021) and some emergency travel. If such fake vaccination incidents are not entirely restrained, then Indian citizens may be refused international travel by other countries in the future.

To overcome fake vaccination in the country, the Government of India should take immediate and necessary action on this serious issue of counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines. Firstly, the Government of India should close the 25% share of private organizations and take hold of 100% share, where all beneficiaries can avail of the COVID-19 vaccination facility free of cost. This step may resolve the issue as fake vaccination camps have been organized only to earn money via the illegal fake COVID-19 vaccines.

Until the policy decision on the 100% government’s share is implemented, the beneficiaries should ensure the originality of the COVID-19 vaccines before being inoculated. Beneficiaries should also ask the vaccinators at the private camps to produce their COVID-19 vaccination certificates immediately after getting vaccinated. People must be suspicious of vaccinators who procrastinate issuing their vaccination certificates and promise to provide the certificate in a couple of days. Conclusively, the rigorous policy decisions by the government and the vigilance of the public and local administration are capable of completely uprooting such fake COVID-19 vaccine scams, which have hindered the mass vaccination drive in India.

Authors’ contributions

O.P.C. did the ideation, conceptualization, data curation, writing original draft, reviewing and editing. PR. executed the conceptualization, writing original draft, reviewing and editing. I.S. T.A.M. and A.J.R.M. did the reviewing and editing. All authors critically reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Ethical approval

This article does not require any human/animal subjects to acquire such approval.

Additional information

Funding

This study received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.