Indian minister says he’s confident in the country’s Covid management
The Indian government is confident that the country will be able to meet an ambitious target of having more than 2 billion coronavirus vaccine doses by the end of the year, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.
Last month, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a statement that India will have 516 million vaccine doses by July, including shots already administered, and that the number will rise to 2.16 billion doses between August and December.
“We have paid the two existing domestic manufacturers, Serum Institute (of India) and Bharat Biotech, advance money to produce vaccines for the whole of May, June, and July. We are only past May,” Puri told CNBC’s Tanvir Gill in an interview. He explained that the government is also in advanced stages of talks with other vaccine manufacturers.
The government is “absolutely confident of being able to meet this target by December,” Puri added.
In its forecast, the Indian government expects about 750 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that is being locally produced by the Serum Institute of India and is known as Covishield. Another 550 million doses of Covaxin, which is developed and produced by Indian company Bharat Biotech, are also expected.
Both vaccines are being currently used in India’s inoculation campaign where more than 222 million doses have been administered as of Thursday — but a majority of them are first of the two doses required for immunity.
Russia’s Sputnik vaccine — the third shot to get approved — will contribute about 156 million to the predicted tally. Reuters reported that six Indian companies have already signed deals to produce around 1 billion doses of the vaccine annually and that Serum Institute is also seeking approval to make it.
The government also expects:
300 million doses of a vaccine candidate developed by local manufacturer Biological-E
50 million doses from Zydus Cadila’s DNA-based candidate
60 million doses from Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals’ mRNA-based candidate
100 million doses of a nasal vaccine candidate from Bharat Biotech that is undergoing clinical trial
200 million doses of Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine — Serum Institute signed a deal with the U.S. biotech firm to produce the vaccine locally
In addition, India has also authorized foreign-made vaccines that have been granted emergency approval by the U.S., U.K., European Union, Japan and World Health Organization-listed agencies.
Vaccines, the way forward
Experts agree that vaccination is the way forward for India — both to bring the economy out of the Covid crisis and to mitigate the effects of a third wave. But vaccine hesitancy, in part due to misinformation being spread about the shots, has been an issue both in India and globally.
Vaccines are also in short supply and that has slowed down domestic inoculation efforts and forced India to halt exports to other countries.
For his part, Puri said that proper dissemination of information and education around vaccination is needed and that the government is doing its part.
India is battling a devastating second wave of outbreak that started in February and accelerated in April and early May, which overwhelmed the country’s health-care infrastructure. The sector has struggled with shortages of beds, oxygen and medication as many doctors and other health-care workers succumbed to Covid-19.
