New Delhi: Serum Institute of India (SII) will provide around 20 crore Covishield doses to the Central government in September – double the number it had committed to earlier.
“We have further enhanced the production capacity and will be able to supply approximately 20 crore doses of Covishield to the government and private hospitals,” SII director, government and regulatory affairs, Prakash Kumar Singh wrote to the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
Serum Institute had submitted a production plan in May, wherein they had mentioned 10 crore doses as production capacity for Covishield both in August and September.
The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer did better than their target, supplying 12 crore doses of Covishield to the Centre and private hospitals in August and promising to provide 20 crore next month.
India is running against time to vaccinate its adult population by the end of this year, as assured by Union ministers a couple of months ago.
Just over 60 crore doses of vaccine – mainly Covishield and Covaxin – have been administered so far in the country. India’s estimated adult population is about 94 crore, so 188 crore doses of vaccine are needed to fully inoculate all adults by December. Hence, 128 crore more doses are needed in the remaining 127 days in 2021, and 1 crore doses have to be administered daily to meet that target.
It’s a tall order if one were to consider that the best week thus far has been June 19-25 when about 59 crore doses of the vaccine were administered.
