India is expecting to manufacture 30-35 crore COVID-19 vaccines between July - August 2021
India is planning to vaccinate 1 crore people every day, says N. K. Arora, Chairman, India's COVID-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI).
"The infrastructure is in place. As on April 2021, the government had 75,000 immunization centres and the government is planning to expand it to 100,000 immunization centres," says N. K. Arora.
Apart from this, the private sector hospitals and nursing homes will add to the existing number of immunization centres as they are procuring 25% of COVID-19 vaccines manufactured in India. All this will lead to the majority of the population being vaccinated by the end of the year.
On the supply side, N.K. Arora said, Serum Institute of India (SII) is supplying between 6-7 crore Covishield doses per month which is bound to increase to 12 crore doses per month by end-June 2021. Bharat Biotech Limited will be supplying 10 crore Covaxin doses per month by end July or beginning August 2021.
The two Make in India COVID-19 vaccine companies - Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech Limited will cumulatively provide 20-25 crore doses per month between July - August, 2021.
Hyderabad-based Biological-E will provide 30 crore of COVID-19 vaccine doses to Indian government from August-December 2021 timeframe for which the Ministry of Health has already paid an advance payment of Rs. 1,500 crore to the company. Zydus Cadila COVID-19 vaccine will be launched end-June or middle of July, 2021 and it is expected that it will supply 1-2 crore vaccine doses per month.
So, India is expecting to manufacture 30-35 crore COVID-19 vaccines between July - August 2021 and it is expected that immunization of one crore people every day keeping in view the supply as well as infrastructure side.