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India Producing 8.5 Cr COVID Jabs, But Administration Far Behind

The Centre told Kerala High Court that average daily number of shots administered in India is around 12 to 13 lakh.

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COVID-19
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With states floating global tenders for vaccines directly, the Centre has shared data with the Supreme Court as well as Kerala High Court, reflecting a curious gap between the number of doses produced and the number of doses administered.

This came after the national capital stopped vaccination for the 18-44 age group, citing a severe paucity of doses and other states too found it hard to procure enough jabs.

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SO WHAT IS THIS DATA?

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, earlier in May, the Centre had reportedly averred:

  • The Serum Institute of India (SII) is producing 6.5 crore doses of Covishield per month.
  • Bharat Biotech Is producing 2 crore doses of Covaxin a month (which would be brought up to 5.5 crore doses a month by July)
The Centre also reiterated before the Kerala High Court on Monday, 24 May, that India is producing more than 8.5 crore vaccine doses per month.

SII had itself been reported to have said repeatedly that its vaccine production is 6-7 crore doses a month. Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech CMD was reported to have said that their company was to produce 20 million doses in April and 30 million doses in May.

Thus, the data supplied by the Centre and the vaccine-makers is very similar.

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MORE DETAILS

Even on taking the lowest figure in each case and the figures given in the Kerala High Court, the data supplied by the Centre and the vaccine-makers indicates that India is currently producing 8.5 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines monthly.

And all this is discounting, the Centre’s claim in the top court that Sputnik was to ramp up production from 30 lakh a month to 1.2 crore in July.

Meanwhile, the Centre also told Kerala High Court that the average number of vaccines administered across the country in a day is around 12 to 13 lakh.

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Only 57% of Doses Administered Daily

As per the information provided by the Centre to the Kerala High Court, the average number of vaccines administered across the country in a day is around 12 to 13 lakh. This is only 57 per cent of the 28.33 lakh doses produced daily.

As per the data on the CoWIN portal, India administered just fewer than 3.6 crore doses in the first 22 days of May at an average of 16.2 lakh doses per day, a rate at which India will only be able to administer approximately 5 crore doses by the end of the month. This, too, is a far cry from the minimum 8.5 crore doses produced.

PERTINENT QUESTIONS

This data throws up a few pertinent questions. These include:

  • What is happening to the doses produced, but not delivered?
  • Why is there a gaping difference between the two, especially when there is such a dire need for vaccinating a major chunk of the population to combat the terrifying spread of the virus?

Delayed Shots to Save Doses

According to a Reuters report, Narendra Kumar Arora, head of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, said India is delaying shots for those who have recovered from the disease.

“It has been done to save vaccine doses,” Arora was quoted as saying by Reuters on Friday.

“We discussed delaying it by three, six, or nine months, but finally we said we can manage it with three months. Let’s do three months for now.”

He further said that owing to the paucity of vaccines in India, the focus should have been on vaccinating those who are most vulnerable.

“Our group prioritised those aged 45 or more. Because 75 per cent of the mortality and morbidity is in that age group,” Arora reportedly told Reuters.

(With inputs from TOI, NDTV and Reuters.)

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