India’s total quantity of administered vaccine doses is set to cross the one hundred-crore milestone in the next handful of days. The nation has currently vaccinated 70% of its eligible citizens with the 1st dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Total Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the nation crossed the 92.53-crore mark on Wednesday. Further, 6.93 crore unutilised vaccine doses is stated to be nonetheless obtainable with the states and UTs.
Serum Institute of India (SII) has contributed a lion’s share to the national Covid-19 vaccination programme. Between January 15 and October 6 this year, the nation got 66.98 crore Covishield doses from SII. It accounted for 88.01% of the total vaccines administered.
SII has been operating non-cease via the peak of the pandemic with all workers reporting to work at its Pune plant and offices across the nation without having any individual working from home. It has rewarded its workers for their efforts and provided workers a specific bonus to acknowledge their part in vaccine development, production, scale-up and provide.
SII also had the 1st-mover benefit with CEO Adar Poonawalla acquiring into several offers with possible Covid-19 vaccine candidates and various partners.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 was one of the most productive of the vaccine candidates and got the 1st of the regulatory approvals globally. SII has due to the fact then scaled up manufacturing capacity and by year-finish would have 4 lines, producing Covishield, Novavax and Sputnik vaccines.
Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin has not been in a position to provide on its numbers and accounted for only 11.51% of the doses administered so far, and a minor contribution from Sputnik vaccines. Speaking on the challenges on scaling up vaccine production, Bharat Biotech MD Krishna Ella lately stated in an interview that apart from the complexity of vaccine manufacturing, gear supplies and glitches in production and availability of talent had been a challenge.