SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in India: Considerations of Hesitancy and Bioethics in Global Health

INTRODUCTION

Worldwide mass vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, while having been the most critical action in combating further waves of COVID-19, was initially fraught with multiple infrastructural and socio-cultural challenges. Vaccine hesitancy, a phenomenon of doubt over the vaccines' claimed efficacy and/or safety amidst access to vaccination, emerged as a major challenge for global health, despite approval and regular post-marketing surveillance by major regulatory bodies.

METHODS

We reviewed the literature related to vaccine hesitancy in India published until November 14, 2021 using relevant keywords in various databases and examined it from a bioethical perspective.

RESULTS

Factors driving hesitancy either intensified skepticism towards vaccination in general or exacerbated reluctance towards specific vaccines. In India, hesitancy towards indigenously developed vaccines was aggravated by the lack of peer-reviewed phase III trial data before the start of vaccination, lack of public transparency of regulatory bodies, and presence of public perception of inappropriately expedited processes. This perspective piece discusses the state of mass immunization in India as a case of how vaccination and its hesitancy thereof gave rise to unique bioethical challenges in global health. In early 2021, vaccination in India was subject to difficulties in adhering to the principles of equity and justice, while a compromise of the principles of informed consent, beneficence, and non-maleficence also perhaps did occur.

CONCLUSIONS

Post-pandemic debriefing on the subversion of bioethical principles will be needed, and an appropriate response may be required to rebuild and enhance the public faith in future mass vaccination movements.

Delivering High-Quality, Equitable Care in India: An Ethically-Resilient Framework for Healthcare Innovation After COVID-19

Developing countries struggle to provide high-quality, equitable care to all. Challenges of resource allocation frequently lead to ethical concerns of healthcare inequity. To tackle this, such developing nations continually need to implement healthcare innovation, coupled with capacity building to ensure new strategies continue to be developed and executed. The COVID-19 pandemic has made significant demands of healthcare systems across the world-to provide equitable healthcare to all, to ensure public health principles are followed, to find novel solutions for previously unencountered healthcare challenges, and to rapidly develop new therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19. Countries worldwide have struggled to accomplish these demands, especially the latter two, considering that few nations had long-standing systems in place to ensure processes for innovation were on-going before the pandemic struck. The crisis represents a critical juncture to plan for a future. This future needs to incorporate a vision for the implementation of healthcare innovation, coupled with capacity building to ensure new strategies continue to be developed and executed. In this paper, the case of the massive Indian healthcare system is utilized to describe how it could implement this vision. An inclusive, ethically-resilient framework has been broadly laid out for healthcare innovation in the future, thereby ensuring success in both the short- and the long-term.

Transhepatic intraperitoneally migrated biliary stent: A rare finding during laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Biliary endoprostheses are increasingly being utilised across both the developing and developed world, due to growing access to endoscopic biliary stenting. Stent migration, a well-documented complication of this minimally invasive procedure, occurs in up to 10% of cases post-insertion, sometimes leading to catastrophic complications. While distal migration frequently leads to spontaneous passage of the stent, proximal migration can result in a variety of problems. We here describe a rare case of transhepatic intraperitoneal migration of a double-pigtail, plastic stent and present a comprehensive review of literature.

Scrub typhus manifesting with intracerebral hemorrhage: Case report and review of literature

Scrub typhus (ST), hitherto absent from many parts of India, is now recently being recognized as a significant cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the country. Its diverse clinical presentations, low of the index of suspicion by the treating physician, and lack of diagnostic testing in many parts of the country result in delayed treatment, leading to a host of complications. We here report such a complication, where ST manifested with a large intracerebral hemorrhage, of which, to the best of our knowledge, only nine cases have been reported in the English language worldwide. Family physicians, who are the often first point of contact for treatment of febrile illness, as ST typically manifests, need to be aware of this entity to prevent such catastrophic consequences.

Overseas Medical Students in Ukraine and War-Related Interruption in Education: Global Health Considerations from India

BACKGROUND

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has caused a humanitarian crisis impacting millions of individuals within Ukraine and globally. While war-related healthcare delivery has been discussed in both the academic biomedical literature and in non-peer-reviewed sources, little academic attention has been paid to overseas medical students who have had to abandon their education. These constitute nearly a third of the 80,000 international students in Ukraine and represent a valuable part of the global healthcare workforce.

OBJECTIVE

This article utilizes the illustrative case of the over 18,000 Indian-origin medical students enrolled in Ukraine to review the state of overseas medical students in Ukraine and war-related interruption in education.

METHODS

Literature, both academic and non-academic, published up until October 1, 2022, pertaining to the conflict, the impact on students, the demands of various stakeholders, and the proposed solutions, was reviewed through the use of appropriate keyword-based searches.

FINDINGS

Factors influencing the decision to pursue education in Ukraine and their pre-crisis pathway to home practice are first discussed. Indian-origin students have historically gone on to Ukraine after securing insufficiently competitive ranks in the national medical school entrance exam, thus preventing them from getting a heavily subsidized education at publicly funded institutions in India. In the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian conflict, these students have faced not only actual and potential challenges related to their safety, shelter, food, and home return, they have been considerably impacted by the uncertainty regarding their educational prospects back home. The article then delineates the nuances and challenges in attempting to reintegrate a large potential healthcare workforce in the home country, and discusses possible solutions, especially those being implemented by the government.

CONCLUSION

Urgent need exists for the involvement of all stakeholders and careful consensus-building before the proposed reintegration from an equity-based perspective.

Financial barriers and inequity in medical education in India: challenges to training a diverse and representative healthcare workforce

India has been historically challenged by an insufficient and heterogeneously clustered distribution of healthcare infrastructure. While resource-limited healthcare settings, such as major parts of India, require multidisciplinary approaches for improvement, one key approach is the recruitment and training of a healthcare workforce representative of its population. This requires overcoming barriers to equity and representation in Indian medical education that are multi-faceted, historical, and rooted in inequality. However, literature is lacking regarding the financial or economic barriers, and their implications on equity and representation in the Indian allopathic physician workforce, which this review sought to describe. Keyword-based searches were carried out in PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus in order to identify relevant literature published till November 2023. This state-of-the-art narrative review describes the existing multi-pronged economic barriers, recent and forthcoming changes deepening these barriers, and how these may limit opportunities for having a diverse workforce. Three sets of major economic barriers exist to becoming a specialized medical practitioner in India - resources required to get selected into an Indian medical school, resources required to pursue medical school, and resources required to get a residency position. The resources in this endeavor have historically included substantial efforts, finances, and privilege, but rising barriers in the medical education system have worsened the state of inequity. Preparation costs for medical school and residency entrance tests have risen steadily, which may be further exacerbated by recent major policy changes regarding licensing and residency selection. Additionally, considerable increases in direct and indirect costs of medical education have recently occurred. Urgent action in these areas may help the Indian population get access to a diverse and representative healthcare workforce and also help alleviate the shortage of primary care physicians in the country. Discussed are the reasons for rural healthcare disparities in India and potential solutions related to medical education.

Bilateral limb gangrene in an HIV patient due to vasculopathy: Managing the dual challenge of psychosocial issues and an uncommon medical condition

Patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have been reported to experience a spectrum of homeostatic dysregulation and resulting manifestations in their vascular system. This may be due to either disruption in the coagulation-anticoagulation pathways or due to damage to vessels from either HIV or other opportunistic infections. However, gangrene in an HIV-infected patient is an uncommon phenomenon. We herein report a case of a 30-year-old female, who had been taking antiretrovirals irregularly for 10 years, developing bilateral limb gangrene during her hospitalization for cryptococcal meningitis. Unfortunately, her condition continued to deteriorate and her attendants took her from the hospital against medical advice, with her death soon after. We illustrate how several biopsychosocial factors came together here to result in poor outcomes. To note, peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in HIV can rapidly lead to critical limb ischemia, resulting in limb gangrene. Aggravating risk factors for the same include smoking, poor glycemic control, and/or low CD4 T-cell count (<200 cells/mm3). General practitioners should be aware that HIV patients are far more prone to PAD than the normal population. Early recognition of at-risk patients, both medically and psychosocially, by family physicians is thus critical.