According to advance information shared with them on Sunday, the federal government will distribute 120 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to all states and union territories for the month of July, including 100 million Covishield shots and 20 million Covaxin shots.
According to the country’s new vaccine policy, 75 percent of these 120 million doses will be given to states and Union Territories after being acquired by the Centre, and the remaining 25 percent will be acquired by private hospitals.
This comes after India had its best week of vaccinations, with an average of over 6 million doses administered every day in the country between June 21 and June 27, following the start of the new phase of the government’s vaccine drive.
Experts have warned, however, that the rate of daily vaccination may slow from what has been seen in the country in the last week, when 120 million doses were distributed over the course of July, equating to about 4 million doses per day.
From June 1 to Sunday morning, 106 million doses were administered across the country (an average of 3.9 million doses per month). To be sure, nearly 42 million of these have been given out in the last week alone.
As part of its advance visibility plan, the Union ministry of health and family welfare has been sharing the estimated number of vaccine doses available in a given month with states before the start of the month so that states and UTs can prepare and schedule vaccinations accordingly. “Providing information on availability of vaccine doses in advance helps states and Union Territories plan their vaccination distribution, and in turn slot allocation, schedule in a more effective way,” a senior health ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
The Centre has developed a methodology for calculating vaccine doses that must be distributed to states, which takes into account the pro-rata population of people aged 18 and up, the Covid-19 disease burden based on the number of active cases in each region, and the vaccination drive’s progress.
The government’s vaccination programme currently includes two vaccines: Covishield and Covaxin. While the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield is manufactured locally by Serum Institute of India, Covaxin was co-developed by Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research.
Another Covid-19 vaccine, Russia’s Sputnik V, developed by Gamaleya Institute, received emergency use authorization from the national drugs regulator on April 13 and is now being administered in pilot mode at a few private Covid-19 vaccination centres across the country.
Since the national Covid-19 vaccination drive began on January 16, 2021, India has administered 371.8 million doses to 265.4 million people. According to government data, a total of 209 million people have received one dose and 56.4 million have been fully vaccinated as of Sunday morning.
The government, on the other hand, has stated that it intends to increase vaccinations.
“We are preparing to administer close to 10 million doses in a single day by August. The programme will get an increased vaccine supply in coming months,” said Dr NK Arora, chairman of the working group on Covid-19 vaccines.
However, achieving the ambitious goal of 10 million doses per day will be almost entirely dependent on supplies, as the country has demonstrated that it has the infrastructure and manpower to deliver close to that number (8.6 million doses were administered on June 21). To meet this goal for the entire month of August, the country would need more than 300 million doses.
