As India grapples with a dire shortage of coronavirus vaccines, the central government and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech are willing to invite other companies that want to produce Covaxin to help scale up production, a top government advisor said on Thursday.
“People say that Covaxin should be given to other companies for manufacturing. I am happy to say that Covaxin manufacturing company (Bharat Biotech) has welcomed this when we discussed it with them,” NITI Aayog member Dr VK Paul said.
“Under this vaccine, a live virus is inactivated and this is done only in BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) labs. Not every company has this. We give an open invitation to companies who want to do this. Companies that want to manufacture Covaxin, should do it together. The centre will assist so that capacity is increased,” Dr Paul said.
The announcement came on the same day that the government said it hoped to have more than 200 crore doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, despite criticism that the government had mishandled the vaccine plan.
On Thursday, India recorded more than 4,000 COVID-19 deaths for the second day in a row as infections remained below 4 lakh, and the AstraZeneca vaccine’s interval between doses was extended to up to 16 weeks due to a vaccine shortage in several states.
Experts are unsure when infection rates will peak, and there is growing concern about the transmissibility of the variant that is causing infections in India and spreading around the world.
The second wave of infections, which began in February, coincided with a slowdown in vaccinations, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement that vaccinations would be available to all adults beginning May 1.
Despite being the world’s largest vaccine producer, India has run out of vaccines due to high demand. According to government data, it had fully vaccinated just over 3.82 crore people, or about 2.8 percent of the country’s population of about 135 crore people, as of Thursday.
“We are going through a phase of finite supply. The entire world is going through this. It takes time to come out of this phase,” Dr Paul said. Some consignments of the Sputnik vaccine had also arrived in the country and he was hopeful they would be available from next week, he said.
