Mumbai: 9 bidders in contention for COVID-19 vaccine supply; BMC closes global tender

In a big development on Tuesday, BMC announced that it had received 10 bids for the supply of COVID-19 vaccines including Sputnik V to Mumbai. The civic body also decided to close the application window for the Global Expression of Interest it had floated on May 12 for procurement of 1 crore vaccines. In a statement, BMC stated that 7 companies had shown interest in supplying Sputnik V, one in Sputnik Light while another firm claimed that it can send any approved vaccine.  

After Pfizer clarified that it has not authorized anyone to import/market/distribute Pfizer-BioNTech COVID 19 vaccine, one of the bidders who had proposed to supply Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines withdrew its proposal on May 28. Thus, the civic body has now decided to scrutinise the documents of 9 suppliers in the next two-three days. However, vaccine procurement remains a distant possibility as no bids were received from any foreign vaccine manufacturer. 

The Global Expression of Interest included a condition barring bids from companies in countries that share land borders with India effectively excluding China. Earlier on May 17, the state government had floated a global tender for 5 crore doses with the condition that the companies should have US FDA and WHO approvals and also get the Union government’s nod to supply to Maharashtra. A total of 26,58,552 persons have been inoculated in Mumbai whereas 7,64,801 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too 

Novel coronavirus situation in India

On Tuesday, June 1, Mumbai reported 831 new novel coronavirus cases propelling the city's COVID-19 tally to 7,07,082. At present, there are 17,328 active COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra's capital out of which 66 per cent are asymptomatic ones. The number of recovered soared to 6,72,664 after 5868 patients were discharged in the day. Meanwhile, 23 COVID-19 deaths were reported on Tuesday, taking Mumbai's fatality toll to 14,907. The city's case positivity rate and fatality rate as of Monday stands at 11.22 per cent and 2.10 per cent. 

So far, 62,95,246 samples have been tested for COVID-19 in Mumbai which amounts to 4,49,660 tests per million population. The number of COVID-19 cases in the city grew at a rate of 0.15 per cent from May 25- May 31. The number of available oxygen beds, ventilator beds, and ICU beds in Mumbai stands at 8224, 261, and 769 respectively.   

While there are 35 active containment zones currently, 153 buildings have been sealed. 13,552 high-risk contacts have been traced in the last 24 hours. At present, 890 high-risk contacts are admitted to Corona Care Centres 1. The patient doubling rate in the city is 453 days. The recovery rate of the Mumbai district rose to 95 per cent.