The pace of vaccinations in India continues to drop as cases of COVID-19 in the country soar—a humanitarian crisis that makes the country vulnerable to counterfeit medicines and could also have wide-reaching supply-chain consequences around the world, say Northeastern scholars of supply chain management and criminology.
If SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, continues to surge, it could hobble businesses—and indeed economies—around the world, says Nada Sanders, university distinguished professor of supply chain management at Northeastern.
“The global economy, and the U.S. economy could see the ripple effects of this crisis as quickly as a month or two,” Sanders says.
To compound the situation, the imbalance between the huge demand for vaccines and the limited supply makes India fertile ground for criminals looking to make some money by selling counterfeit vaccines—medicines that, at best, are useless against COVID-19, and at worst, can be harmful to those receiving them, says Nikos Passas, professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern.
Read the full story on Northeastern News.
