Serum to increase monthly production of Covishield vaccines to 10 crore doses by August

Amid multiple states reporting a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, Serum Institute of India on Wednesday submitted its production plan to the Centre, informing it will ramp it up to 10 crore doses by August. The Union Health Ministry and the office of Drugs Controller General of India had sought the firm’s production plan for the next four months.

Prakash Kumar Singh, Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs at Serum Institute of India informed the Centre that the production of Covishield would be ramped up to 10 crore doses each in August and will be maintained at that level in September.

“We confirm that the quantities mentioned will be fulfilled under all circumstances. Also, we are trying our best by utilising all our resources to increase our production capacity of Covishield. In view of this, the production during June and July may also increase by some quantity," Singh said in a communique to the health ministry.

COVAXIN to double vaccine production

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech is learnt to have conveyed to the government that the production of Covaxin would be raised to 3.32 crore in July, and to 7.82 crores in August which will be maintained in September too. COVAXIN vials will be increased from the existing 1 crore doses in April to 6-7 crore doses in July and reach nearly 10 crores (100 million) doses per month by September this year, the manufacturer said.

An inter-ministerial group, comprising Rajneesh Tingal, Joint Secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Dr Mandeep Bhandari, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health, which was constituted for facilitating the capacity augmentation of domestic vaccine manufacturing, had visited the production facilities of both the SII and Bharat Biotech in April.

The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech's indigenously developed Covaxin and Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield, being manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, are currently being used in India's inoculation drive against coronavirus.