PremiumDay after the Centre said that it will procure 20-25 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses by July-end, and 30 crore doses in August-September, the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech said that it will increase its production to 10-12 crore doses per month by July-end.
With ramping up of production capacities, nearly 25 crore 'Made in India' vaccines are expected to be available by August, a senior official has said and noted that it will go a long way in meeting the target of vaccinating one crore people daily against coronavirus.
There has been a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines after it was decided to open up vaccination to all those above 18 years.
"Yesterday, SII in a letter mentioned that they will be manufacturing 10-12 crore of vaccine doses, which is almost 50 per cent ramping up (of their capacity) by June-end. Similarly, Covaxin is also going to increase its production and by July-end they will also produce between 10-12 crore doses (per month)," Dr NK Arora, Chairman of COVID-19 working group under National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI), was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Pune-based Serum Institute manufactures Covishield vaccine against COVID-19 while Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech manufactures Covaxin.
The Russian Sputnik V is the third vaccine to get approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use and is being used in a few private hospitals.
"By August we will have 20-25 crore vaccine doses per month, another 5-6 crore doses from other manufacturing units or if we get international vaccine doses. The objective is to vaccinate one crore people every day," Dr Arora added.
He said India may start in few weeks testing the feasibility of a regimen "that mixes two different doses of COVID vaccines to see if it helps boost the immune response to virus". The researchers in such a study would see the effects of giving a different vaccine in the second dose.
At present, the country has availability of 7-7.5 crore doses of Covishield and Covaxin per month.
India's daily new cases of coronavirus continue to decline and 1,52,734 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours, the lowest in 46 days.
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