As India touched the milestone of administering 70 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines on Tuesday, the shortage of Covaxin eight months into the campaign has emerged as a source of concern raising questions on the manufacturer’s and the Centre’s claim of ramped up production of the homegrown shot.
As on Tuesday 8 pm, the country's Covid-19 vaccination campaign had administered around 61.7 crore doses of Covishield made by the Serum Institute of India using the Oxford University-AstraZeneca technology, as against 8.36 crore doses of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, developed in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology, Pune – a constituent laboratory of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturer initially produced 90 lakh doses every month, which was augmented to 2 crore doses by May, the Union Health Ministry had informed the Supreme Court.
While the ministry had expected a further increase in production (5.5 crore doses by July) and informed the top court accordingly, there are now questions on whether such expectations were realistic.
Assuming a production volume of 90 lakh doses for four months (January to April) and two crore doses since May, Bharat Biotech should have produced more than 11 crore doses by now.
But usage of 8.36 crore and the pipeline of possibly another 1-1.5 crore doses would mean a shortage of nearly two crore doses of Covaxin as of now.
The shortage becomes more pronounced if one takes into account the company’s claim of having a stockpile of 2 crore doses in January days after it received the regulatory approval for emergency use authorisation.
"There were glitches in the scale-up process and the company was over-confident with their claims,” a top government official told DH on the condition of anonymity. Despite repeated requests, Bharat Biotech did not respond to DH queries on the production shortage issues.
Inadequate supply of Covaxin limits the Centre’s ability to inoculate 94.47 crore target population with two doses of the Covid vaccines by December 2021 with more evidence emerging on the efficacy of the double dose against the highly contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.
"Suppose you are used to cooking for 10 people and then one day you have to cook for 100 people. Only increasing the ingredients by 10 times will not help. The entire process has to be recalibrated,” the government official explained without divulging the specifics of the glitches.
Bharat Biotech has five production units at Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Malur and Ankelshwar. The last one, which produced the first batch in August is expected to start commercial supply Covaxin from September.
In July, NITI Ayog member Vinod Paul had stated that “production (of Covaxin) was a little behind expectations, but issues have been addressed", adding that the production it had planned will be achieved. “There was a lag time in Covaxin production. I hope it picks up now,” added the government official.
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