Government plans to boost supply of Covid-19 vaccines from August

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As worries about the possibility of the third wave of Covid-19 persist, the government has renewed its focus on the nationwide vaccination drive. The government is working to make 135 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses available between August and December. Around 15 crore doses of vaccines are expected to be available in August.

The government assured that it had planned to get the entire adult population vaccinated by December-end.

Vaccination roadmap for August

Serum Institute of India (SII) is expected to supply 12-13 crore doses of Covishield per month starting August, compared to a monthly supply of 10 crores.

Bharat Biotech is also ramping up its supply of Covaxin from 2 crore doses to 2.5 crore doses in August.

NITI Aayog Health member Dr. VK Paul said that they are visualising supply to the tune of about 15 crore vaccines in August. He also said that supply estimates might vary and some doses are always in the pipeline.

Since no new vaccine manufacturer has been added recently, India should be able to administer roughly 50 lakh doses on a regular basis in the coming month.

The private sector is also an important ally in the inoculation drive against Covid-19, but their rate of vaccination is not in proportion with the 25% quota of vaccines that they receive. Administration of vaccination

So far in July, 9.8 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered, on an average of 36.29 lakh doses per day. This is relatively lower than the daily average of the previous month which stood at 39.89 lakh doses per day. The government reiterated that its target is to administer one crore doses per day. Since January, a total of 45.7 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been supplied to all the states and UTs. Around 6 crore more doses are expected to be out by July 31, which will take the cumulative total for this month to 51.7 crore doses.

Expenditure

In terms of expenditure, the government said in Parliament last week that Rs 9,725 crore has been shelled out so far on the nationwide inoculation drive.

This expenditure is inclusive of the procurement of jabs and the operational cost of vaccination. This information was shared in response to questions raised in the Lok Sabha by opposition MPs Rahul Gandhi (Congress) and Mala Roy (Trinamool Congress).