E-Paper
India will administer 1bn vaccine doses by October-end: Mandaviya
The Union health minister added that this month, around 280 million doses are available for the country’s vaccine drive
NEW DELHI: India will cross an important milestone of having administered a billion vaccine doses by the third week of October, and will then take a call on resumption of exports of locally-made Covid vaccines, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Wednesday. He added that this month, around 280 million doses are available for the country’s vaccine drive.
The government said on September 20 that it would resume exports of vaccines in October. And the numbers have suggested for some time now that India will cross the billion-doses mark around mid-October. Till Wednesday night, India had administered 967 million doses, with 276 million people having received both doses and another 414 million having received one dose.
A total of 940 million Indians aged 18 and above are eligible for vaccines.
Only China has administered more vaccine doses than India.
Bharatiya Janata Party insiders on condition of anonymity said that the government is keen on speeding up the vaccination drive ahead of the upcoming assembly elections and wants to present the inoculation programme as a major achievement of the Narendra Modi administration.
On Tuesday, the subject expert committee of the drug regulator recommended the emergency use of Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine for those in the 2 to 18 years age-group .
India is yet to start vaccinations of those under the age of 18, although another vaccine for those in the 12-18 age group, ZyCoV-D was approved on August 20.
“As on date, 73% of the total population has been given at least a single dose of the vaccine; close to 30% has received both doses and we are following up with states to increase the vaccine administration. There are 80 million doses kept ready for use by the states,” said a government functionary.
In an analysis published on Wednesday, HT pointed out that vaccinations in India may be nearing a ceiling. Most experts believe not more than 75-80% of the population will want to take vaccines.
The functionary said that most states have inoculated about 60% of their population (one dose), but without citing numbers said the proportion of vaccinated people is lower in the tribal areas.
“There is no shortage of vaccines, it has however been noticed worldwide that there tends to be a saturation once 70% of the population is covered. So efforts are on to cover the remaining the population and counter any vaccine hesitancy. As for the availability of vaccines, the production for October alone is about 280 million doses. Of this 220 million are of Covishield, 60 million Covaxin and 6 million, the DNA vaccine (ZyCov-D),” the functionary said
To a separate question on how the government plans to counter the bar on travels inoculated with Covaxin which is awaiting clearances from the World Health Organisation and not recognised by countries such as Canada, Australia and the UK., the official said, “While we are awaiting clearances (from the World Health Organisation) we are also working on country- to- country mutual agreements for waiving the restrictions. So far about 15-16 counties including Italy are allowing travellers with Covaxin jabs.”
Most countries, including Australia most recently, recognise Covishield, the Indian variant of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 shot.
India is also yet to take a call on administering booster doses to senior citizens, healthcare workers and those with comorbidities even though the WHO has recommended booster doses for the immunocompromised. “There is no expert opinion yet in India on the booster doses. The sero survey that was conducted shows a pan India prevalence of antibodies in 67% of the population and we will also be conducting a survey to study breakthrough cases,”the functionary explained.
