India will have close to 120 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines available for domestic use in June, the government said on Sunday.
This represents a more than 50 per cent jump from the 79.4 million doses that were made available in May.
The move is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s wartime plan unveiled on May 18 to supply coronavirus vaccines to states on “a very large scale” in order to defeat the coronavirus pandemic.
For the month of June, 60.9 million doses will be made available by the central government to states for vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers and those above the age of 45 years, while 58.6 million doses will be available for direct purchase by states and private hospitals, the government said in a statement.
The increased supplies are meant to further rev up the country’s accelerated inoculation drive which has been expanded since May 1 to cover the entire adult population.
The Central government is in close touch with vaccine manufacturers to expedite production and has made additional finance available to them to expand their capacities. Public sector companies have also been roped in to produce the homegrown Covaxin vaccine to augment supply.
India has already administered about 212 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to its population, the highest number after China and the United States, although it is still not enough given the population size of 1.35 billion.
As part of this plan to step up the availability of vaccines, the government’s top health adviser Dr VK Paul has said, “We will have 2 billion doses in the next five months – made by India and used by India.”
This will include another 750 million of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, manufactured in India by the Serum Institute of India under the Covishield brand, as well as 550 million doses of Covaxin, made by Bharat Biotech will be produced between August and December, Paul told reporters at a news conference.
The government has already asked some public sector companies to produce Covaxin and now as part of the rapid expansion plan to produce more vaccines, the move has been extended to private sector companies as well.
Sputnik V
About 3 million doses of Sputnik V have arrived as part of bulk imports by May-end to India and will be filled in vials locally for administering the shots in the country. This will be followed up with another 5 million doses in June after which production in India is expected to start in August, Indian ambassador to Russia, Bala Venkatesh Varma said.
Production of Sputnik V has also started and will be stepped up from August onwards. Plans are in place to roll out 750 million doses a year. The single-dose Sputnik Lite vaccine will also be imported soon to augment the campaign.
New Indian vaccine
Ahmedabad-based pharma firm Cadila Healthcare plans to triple monthly production of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to 30 million doses a month as it expects to get approval for its use very soon, the company’s managing director said recently. Once cleared for emergency use, it will become India’s fourth vaccine to fight COVID-19.
The company has already started producing 10 million doses a month of the vaccine as it expects government approval for use to come through in a matter of days.
