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Vaccine Production Needs To Be Increased And More Vaccines Need To Be Approved

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-04-08 06:32:24

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

Is India's vaccination programme in the danger of getting derailed? Three things point to this. In the first, more than 10 states have made representations to the Centre for additional stocks saying that their stocks will not last for the next 3-4 days. Maharashtra’s case is particularly grim with reports of several centres in the state stopping vaccination due to low or no stocks. In the second, AstraZeneca has already served a legal notice on Serum Institute for reneging on supply commitments while Serum has petitioned the Centre to provide Rs. 3000 crore to ramp up production. In the third, despite three months having passed since the vaccination drive started, India is still making do with only two vaccine candidates and others have not been approved for inoculation in the country. Russia is willing to get Sputnik manufactured in India and India would do well to approve it after necessary tests. There are other candidates too which can be seriously looked at. India has manufacturing capacity and it should be used gainfully now.

The government has to take these decisions fast. It has to approve other vaccine candidates and get those vaccines manufactured in India. Import is an option but it will be costly as Serum supplies Covishield at a highly-subsidized rate of just Rs. 150 per dose to the government. At the same time, it must look into ways to ramp up production and supplies of both Covishield and Covaxin. Presently, India is administering between 25 to 35 lakh doses per day. At this rate, India needs 9 crore doses per month. At their present production capacity, both Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech are incapable of servicing the vaccine programme. Production has to be ramped up and new vaccines have to be approved if the vaccination drive is to be sustained at current levels and expanded in the near future.

 

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