Covid-19 vaccine: Covaxin, Covishield production to be ramped up to a billion doses

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Hit by a devastating second wave of the Covid-19 infections, India has been focusing on ramping up domestic production of Covid-19 vaccines as well their procurement from abroad. Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII), which are at the forefront of supplying Covid-19 vaccines in the country are doing their best to ramp up the production.

Covaxin Production Bharat Biotech has said that it plans to produce additional 200 million (20 crore) doses of Covid-19 vaccine ‘Covaxin’ at its subsidiary’s Gujarat-based facility, taking the overall production volume of the vaccine to about 1 billion (100 crore) dosages per annum.

The Hyderabad-based firm said it will utilise the Ankleshwar-based production facility of its wholly-owned subsidiary Chiron Behring Vaccines to add another 200 million doses of Covaxin. The Ankleshwar-based plant would start rolling out the much in demand vaccine from the fourth quarter of the year, it added. Bharat Biotech sells Covaxin to the states at Rs 400 per dose.

Covishield Production Reportedly, Serum Institute of India (SII) plans to increase its annual production capacity of Covishield from 1.5 to 2.5 billion doses per annum. Earlier this month, Adar Poonawalla CEO of SII, had asked the government for financial assistance to ramp up vaccine production. SII sells Covishield to states at Rs 400 per dose.

Raw material procurement Also, Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar will visit the United States from May 24 to 28 to press for further speeding up of the supply of raw materials to boost vaccine production in India besides exploring the option of joint production. Earlier this month, the US sent to India raw materials for vaccine production which it said would enable the manufacture of 20 million doses of the Covishield vaccines.

The US announced earlier this week that it will share an additional 20 million coronavirus vaccine doses with other countries in addition to the 60 million it has already committed.

Vaccination drive The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has surpassed 19 crore, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday. On the day-125 of the vaccination drive on Thursday, a total of 14,56,088 vaccine doses — 12,73,785 first dose and 1,82,303 second dose — were given according to provisional report till 8 PM, the ministry data showed.

The ministry said of these 7,36,514 beneficiaries in the age group of 18-44 received their first dose on Thursday, and cumulatively the number reached 85,84,054 since the start of phase-3 of the vaccination drive on May 1.