How Centre plans to vaccinate all 940 million adults against Covid-19 by December
According to Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, 536 million vaccine doses are available for use till July while 1336 million more doses will be made available from August-December.
Along with changing its Covid-19 vaccination strategy, the central government has prepared a plan to vaccinate all 940 million people above the age of 18 by December 2021. Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan has said 536 million vaccine doses are available for vaccination till July, while arrangements are being made to have 1336 million more doses between August-December to inoculate all 940 million beneficiaries.
According to Bhushan, of these 536 million vaccine doses, nearly one-third or 180 million doses were purchased directly by state governments or hospitals. "From August to December, 500 million doses of Covishield, 386 million of Covaxin, 300 million from Biological E, 100 million of Sputnik V and 50 million from Zydus Cadila will be available," the Union health secretary said.
With this, the total number of vaccine doses used in the country's vaccination drive, from January to December, would reach 1872 million, which Bhushan said, would be adequate to vaccinate 940 million people. The number of doses available will further increase if doses from companies like Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson etc. are available, along with those from domestic firm Gennova as well as the nasal spray being developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, the firm behind Covaxin.
The health secretary also said that in the coming days, the pace of vaccination will pick up as 120 million doses are available for June, as against 80 million in May.
According to the Centre, chief ministers from 10 states wrote to it in May, requesting for vaccine jabs to be procured by the Union government itself. These were chief ministers from Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Tripura.
