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New Delhi: A day before the end of August, India has so far given a total of 164 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines this month, which is significantly higher than the 150 million doses. expected to be available, and even achieved my goal of 10 million doses a day last week.
Officials say these numbers have been driven almost exclusively by booster production of the Covidshield dose by the Serum Institute of India (SII), which supplied 150 million doses in August alone.
The average daily vaccination so far in August has been around 54.69 lakh doses per day. While India delivered 1.03 crore doses on Friday, the number came down to 31.14 lakh on Sunday, but the fact remains that the pace of vaccination has picked up of late.
“Kovshield increased its produce. Then of course there was some spillover (of vaccine supply) from July. This is how we achieved the August vaccination numbers,” said a senior official associated with the vaccination programme.
ThePrint reached out to SII via WhatsApp for a comment on how it increased production capacity, but did not receive a response till this article was published.
However, a company spokesperson told ThePrint that in August the total supply of Covisheel was around 150 million doses. SII did it last week announced That it is targeting to produce 200 million doses per month from September. Health ministry officials said the projected target would “significantly increase” vaccine availability from next month, with senior officials estimating that around 22-23 crore vaccine doses could be available in September.
According to the central government, states currently have more than four crore vaccine doses available, with another 21 lakh in the pipeline.
“So far more than 63.09 crore (63,09,30,270) vaccine doses have been provided to States/UTs through Government of India (free channel) and through Direct State Procurement category. In addition, over 21.76 lakh doses (21,76,930) are in the pipeline. More than 4.87 crore (4,87,39,946) remaining and untapped COVID vaccine doses are still available with the states/UTs, the Press Information Bureau said in a statement on Monday morning.
Covishield vs Covaxin
The initial manufacturing projection that SII submitted to the government for the month of August was 12 crore vaccines. Bharat Biotech, which manufactures indigenous Covaxin shots, was expected to produce 2-25 million vaccine doses.
Officials said the August supply of Covaxin has been around 20 million doses but the Covishield supply was better than expected. As on July 31, over 3.14 crore (3,14,57,081) vaccine doses were still available with the states.
This means that SII has surpassed its Promise Production Capacity, Covaxin continues to lag behind. This despite the fact that Bharat Biotech Started production at its Ankleshwar unit in the weekends. The plant is expected to manufacture around 100 crore doses per year, meeting the company’s annual Covaxin production target of 200 million doses.
The 15 crore doses per month of Covishield is part of the budget given by the government earlier this year. Availability of 216 crore doses Between August and December, for which it was criticized. In that launch, Covaxin was expected To achieve monthly production of around 11 crore doses per month.
Other vaccines on that list – Bio E Vaccine, Zykov D (Zydus Cadila), Novavax (SII), Bharat Biotech’s Nasal Vaccine, mRNA Vaccine (Genova) and Sputnik V Vaccine – have not yet been included in the national program. .
“We are looking at around 10 million doses of Zycov D in October – you can say that is a bit speculative. Then, Bio E has already started stocking up without waiting for the EU to do so, so maybe by November (it could be added to the national schedule), ”said a senior government official.
(Edited by Mansa Mohan)
Read also: India will have 18-22 crore vaccine doses by September, ZyCoV D may take longer to reach the market
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