29 May , 2021 By : Kanchan Joshi
Amid shortage of Covid vaccine in the country, the Ministry of Health on Friday said that the production capacity of indigenously developed Covaxin will be up from current 1 crore doses to 6-7 crore in July-August. It is expected to reach nearly 10 crore doses per month by September 2021.
The ministry said that in order to streamline the availability of the vaccine doses, the Centre has been constantly in touch with the vaccine manufacturers and has opened up different procurement options for states and Union Territories since May 2021.
Then the ministry said that the vaccine takes time and boosting production cannot be done overnight. It said, "Vaccine being a biological product of medical importance takes time for harvesting and quality testing. This cannot be done overnight to ensure a safe product."
"Thus increase in capacity of manufacturing too needs to be a guided process and an increase in gross production does not translate to immediate supply," the ministry stated.
This comes at a time when the Centre is under pressure to ramp up vaccine production in the country and import from foreign manufacturers. So far, only three vaccines — Covaxin of Bharat Biotech, Covishield of Serum Institute and Sputnik, which will be manufactured by multiple companies — have been allowed for vaccination drive in the country.
As of May 28, Bharat Biotech has supplied 2,76,66,860 vaccine doses to the Centre. Of these, 2,20,89,880 doses including wastage, have been consumed by all the states/ UTs.
With this, the ministry said, the balance available doses of vaccines with states are 55,76,980 doses. "Private hospitals have also received 13,65,760 doses of Covaxin in the same month over and above what has been supplied to the GoI and the states," it added.
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