Centre has placed a purchase order for 66 crore doses of Covishield vaccine from the Serum Institute of India (SII), sources told news agency PTI on Thursday. The doses will have to be supplied by December of this year, the report said.
SII has been scaling up production by enhancing the manufacturing capacity of Covishield to more than 20 crore doses per month. Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, on the other hand, has not been able to start on the production of the 28.50 crore doses of Covaxin, the order for which was put in July by the Union government, reported PTI.
The announcement comes days after Prakash Kumar Singh, director, government and regulatory affairs at Pune-based SII, wrote to NITI Aayog Member (health) Dr V K Paul and Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, stating that the manufacturer has supplied 60 crore of the 65 crore doses administered in the country so far.
Also Read: Allow Covishield 2nd dose after 4 weeks: Kerala HC to Centre
"We at Serum Institute of India (SII), under the able leadership of our CEO, Adar C Poonawalla, feel proud to be part of this world's largest COVID-19 vaccination drive and pleased to share that till date the SII alone has supplied more than 60 crore doses of Covishield to Government of India, state governments and private hospitals,” Singh said in his written communication in late August.
{{/usCountry}}"We at Serum Institute of India (SII), under the able leadership of our CEO, Adar C Poonawalla, feel proud to be part of this world's largest COVID-19 vaccination drive and pleased to share that till date the SII alone has supplied more than 60 crore doses of Covishield to Government of India, state governments and private hospitals,” Singh said in his written communication in late August.
{{/usCountry}}"This has only been possible because of visionary leadership of our prime minister, continuous guidance provided by your kind self from time to time, valuable support of Team GoI and farsighted vision of our CEO," he added.
SII has also supplied 12 crore doses of Covishield in the month of August, the company said.