India’s Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech to treble Covid vaccine output to 210 million doses a month by September/October

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, May 27:

India’s Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech will treble their Covid-19 vaccine output to 210 million doses a month by September or October from 74 million doses at present, the Government said here on Thursday.

Dr VK Paul, head of India’s Covid-19 task force, said that indigenous Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing firm Bharat Biotech started with around nine million doses production capacity. The Hyderabad-based pharma company will ramp it up to around 100 million doses per month by September or October this year, he added.

Dr Paul, who is also NITI Aayog member, said that the Serum Institute of India (SII) of Pune in Maharashtra is also ramping up production of its Covishield vaccine from 650 million doses per month at present to around 110 million doses, also by September or October.

The SII is world’s largest vaccine-manufacturing company by volume. Serum and Bharat Biotech are the only two companies in India that have received nod from government to produce the Covid-19 vaccines.

However, Panacea Biotech in collaboration with Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF has begun the production of ‘Sputnik V’ Covid-19 vaccine in India.

Sputnik V was registered in India under the emergency use authorisation procedure on April 12, 2021.

According to the union health ministry, India’s cumulative vaccination coverage has exceeded 202.6 million as of May 27.