Vaccine crunch slowing India’s vaccination drive: Time to ramp up production

National

Amid repleting vaccine stocks, India has witnessed a dip in its vaccination graph, with 7 day average lowest in 2 months. While the country has administered 19,18,79,503 vaccine doses till now, it still has a long way to go. In light of the situation, several vaccine centres across the states have been shut, several are only administering vaccines to 45+ while several centres have only slots for the first dose, and not the second.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan will be chairing a meeting with Health Ministers of Chattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Purucherry and LG’s/Administrator of A&N Islands, Chandigrah, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, J&K, Ladakh & Lakshadweep to review the Covid-19 situation and vaccination progress.

In order to ramp up vaccine production, Bharat Biotech has announced move to scale up the manufacturing capacity of Covaxin by 200 million doses. The Hyderabad-based company has ramped up manufacturing capacity at its subsidiary Ankleshwar-based facility in Gujarat. In an official statement, Bharat Biotech said that the company plans to produce 200 million doses of Covaxin per year in its GMP facilities. It added that the production of vaccines will be based on inactivated Vero Cell platform technology under stringent levels of GMP and biosafety.

With this, India has also received two consignment of Sputnik V. However, it is currently being administered only in Hyderabad. For India to resolve the issue of vaccination paucity and steer clear of further waves of Covid-19, it is important to inoculate a population of 130 crores, as it is the only hope for citizens of India.