Pharmacy of the world is running short of vaccines to inoculate its own population against the deadly coronavirus which is ravaging the country in a second wave...
At the current rate of 1.8 million vaccination per day, it would take more than 3 years to vaccinate 80 per cent of the country's population -- the magic figure needed for herd immunity.
The govt has set an ambitious target of vaccinating over 1 billion people by December 31. It will need to vaccinate nearly 9 million people every day to achieve that.
The govt is now projecting that the country will have 2 billion vaccines by the year-end. In a presentation last week, NITI Aayog member V.K. Paul projected production estimates of various domestic vaccine makers, citing provisional data. “About 75 crore doses of Covishield and 55 crore of Covaxin will be produced in that period," Paul said.
However, these numbers may be overly optimistic. Even the manufacturers themselves were surprised by the govt's projections as they exceeded internal best-case scenarios
While the govt has projected 750 mn doses for Covishield, Serum Institute has pegged the production at 500 mn. Similarly Bharat BioTech estimates 470 mn doses of Covaxin by the year end, while govt has put the number at 550 mn. And for Sputnik V, govt says 156mn, while Dr Reddys has put the number at 125 mn
So there is a gap of 300 million in the figures.
India's inoculations drive which started on January 16 has remained painfully sluggish. Just over 2% of the population has got both the shots till now and 12% people have got at least one jab.
The drive to vaccinate all adults from May 1 has also fumbled due to shortage of vaccine with citizens struggling to get limited slots. States after states have complained that the vaccine makers have asked them to wait.
Serum Institute of India chief Adar Poonawalla told the Financial Times that the vaccine crunch is going to last July when he expects SII to ramp up the production to 100 million doses a day.
So, where did things go wrong for India on the vaccine front. Despite this big promise and allocation during this year's budget. India did not secure enough vaccines. According to an ET report, the Indian govt initially ordered only 21 million doses, followed by 110 million in March.
Clearly inadequate, given that India has nearly 1.4 billion people.
And while the govt didn't stock up... it was exporting the vaccine to the world from the beginning of this year... ignoring warning from experts and scientists' groups that may be on way back with vengeance in the country after the first wave ebbed.
6.6 crore doses of made-in-India vaccine were exported to a total of 95 countries under the "Vaccine Maitri" initiative since Jan. Out of these, 1.6 crore doses were given for free to various low-income countries
The SII was expected to deliver the first 100 million doses between February and May - but government data shows that it has so far delivered only 30 million, including 10 million set aside for India itself under Covax.