COVID vax drive set to gain pace from September

The Union government said on Wednesday (August 25) that the nationwide vaccination drive has been ramped up with the availability of more vaccines, advance the visibility of vaccine availability to States to enable better planning, and streamlining of the vaccine supply chain.

As of August 25, the government has provided more than 58.07 crore vaccine doses to States and Union Territories (UTs) through the free-of-cost channel and direct State procurement. Further, 5.2 million doses are in the pipeline. In addition, States and UTs already have more than 3.62 crore unutilised Covid vaccine doses on hand.
As part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the government has been supporting the States and UTs by providing them Covid vaccines free of cost.

Easing supplies
Barclays, in its recent report, said that the revised supply estimates suggest that an average of 5.6 million doses per day will be available from September.

“We assume that Serum Institute of India (SII) is able to increase its capacity to 110 million doses by September, while Bharat Biotech is only able to achieve its expansion target of 60 million doses by October,” Barclays added.

The present Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity is 130-140 million doses per month, and this is expected to reach 360-370 million doses by the end of December 2021, a CARE Ratings report estimates.

The government last week approved emergency use of Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D vaccine for those aged 12 years and above. Zydus said it expects to have supplies of 1 crore doses of the vaccine by October. The vaccine needs to be taken in three doses. In addition to ZyCoV-D, large supplies of Sputnik V are expected to enter the market by the end of September and October. The government has also approved Covid-19 vaccines developed by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson for emergency use.

Scaling up vaccination
In the new phase universalising the vaccination drive, the Union Government will procure and supply 75 percent of the vaccines being produced by vaccine manufacturers in the country to States and UTs.

India has administered 61 lakh doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in the last 24 hours, with cumulative vaccination coverage crossing 59.55 crore. On an average, the pace of vaccination in India has been steady at about 50-55 lakh doses per day.

According to CARE Ratings, India needs to administer at least another 2 billion doses to cover the entire population. At the moment a little over 8 percent of India is fully vaccinated, which is decent progress at a time when the second wave is declining.

India has reported below 40,000 cases for the 12th straight day, with Kerala alone accounting for 60 percent of the new cases. The country carried out around 7.93 lakh new tests on August 24, with the weekly positivity rate at 1.92 percent — less than 3 percent for the last 61 days. The daily positivity rate stands at 2.10 percent.

Analysts say there are concerns about the risk of a third wave given the upcoming festive season. Several festivals will be celebrated between August and November, with people travelling in large numbers across the country.

“We expect a material acceleration in the vaccination rate in the next few months, with 35 percent of the population fully vaccinated by end-October, and India on track to provide over 1.4 billion doses by end-2021, which would equate to coverage of 52 percent of the population,” the Barclays report added. Moneycontrol