Over 216 crore COVID-19 vaccines to be manufactured in India for Indians: Health Ministry

Looking to massively scale up the COVID-19 vaccine production over the next few months, the Union Health Ministry has announced that the nation would manufacture 216 crore doses of COVID vaccines in India for the Indians between August to December 2021. The 216 crore doses include 75 crore doses of Covishield, 55 crore doses of Covaxin, 30 crore doses of Bio E Sub Vaccine, 20 crore doses of SII's Novavax, 15.6 crore doses of Russia's Sputnik amongst others. With this addition, India would have over 2 billion doses of COVID vaccines available in the coming months.

The Centre also stated that additionally, other foreign COVID vaccines may also become available in the coming future. While addressing a press conference yesterday Niti Aayog's VK Paul shared that the government was in touch with Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J manufacturers asking them if they wanted to supply vaccines to India. A reply from them would be sought by the third quarter of 2021, as per the official. 

COVID-19 vaccination in India 

The vaccination drive in India, as of May 14 is inching closer to the 18 crore mark. The Health Ministry has informed that 17.72 crore doses have been administered in India so far. Currently, the nation occupies the third position worldwide and is a little behind the US which has administered 26 crore doses. 

On the infection front, the overall country-wide positivity rate has declined from 21.95% to 21.02% in the past week and the number of fatalities has also reduced in the last 3 days. Twelve states have more than 1 lakh active cases while 8 states have over 50,000 cases. 

India recorded 3,62,727 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday which took the total case tally to 2,37,03,665. As of May 14, the country is battling 37,10,525 active cases. In the last 24 hours, India has recorded 3,52,181 recoveries and 4,120 deaths.