LEADING Indian virologist Shahid Jameel has quit a government scientific advisory group days after he criticised its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, it was revealed yesterday.

He did not give a reason for his resignation, which, it is understood, happened on Friday, although he had expressed concerns that scientists were facing “stubborn resistance to evidence-based policy-making.”

Members of the Sars-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium warned government officials in early March of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus, urging them to take measures to prevent it from spreading.

India has been hit by the B.1.617 variant, which has led to a surge in cases. The country has now recorded more than 24 million cases and 274,000 deaths.

A number of deaths have been attributed to severe shortages of oxygen as the health system is stretched to breaking point. 

The crisis in India has led to a shortage of 140 million doses of vaccine for the the global Covax scheme as the Serum Institute of India, the scheme’s largest supplier, scrapping its shipments in March.

Yesterday the United Nations children’s agency Unicef, which buys and distributes vaccines for Covax, urged European Union and G7 leaders to share their doses with the international scheme.