New Delhi: Senior Indian virologist Shahid Jameel has resigned from a forum of scientific advisers set up by the government to detect variants of the coronavirus.
Shahid Jameel, chair of the scientific advisory group of the forum known as INSACOG, declined to give a reason for his resignation.
Renu Swarup, the secretary of the Department of Biotechnology that oversees INSACOG, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dr Jameel had recently written a piece in The New York Times in which he had said that scientists in India are facing a “stubborn response to evidence-based policy making.”
He had pointed out issues with India’s COVID-19 management, especially the lower testing, slow pace of vaccination, vaccine shortage and the need for a bigger healthcare workforce.
“All of these measures have wide support among my fellow scientists in India. But they are facing stubborn resistance to evidence-based policymaking,” he wrote.
Noting gaps in the country’s data-gathering, he said, “On April 30, over 800 Indian scientists appealed to the prime minister, demanding access to the data that could help them further study, predict and curb this virus.”
“Decision-making based on data is yet another casualty, as the pandemic in India has spun out of control. The human cost we are enduring will leave a permanent scar,” Dr Jameel wrote.
