India’s Serum Institute to produce 100 million Covishield doses in June

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN

Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, May 30: Even as several states are complaining about the shortage of coronavirus vaccine jabs, the Serum Institute of India (SII) has informed the Government that it will be able to manufacture and supply 90 million to 100 million doses of Covishield in June, official sources said on Sunday.

In a recent letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, SII said its employees have been working round the clock in spite of various challenges because of the pandemic.

“We are pleased to inform that in the month of June we will be able to manufacture and supply 90 to 100 million doses of our Covishield vaccine to the country as compared to our production capacity of 65 million doses in May,” Prakash Kumar Singh, the Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at SII, said in the letter.

Singh also thanked Shah for his “valuable guidance and continuous support” at various stages of their endeavour to make India ‘aatmanirbhar’ (self-sufficient) in Covid-19 vaccines and making it available for the people of the country.

“Serum Institute of India has always been sincerely concerned about the protection of the citizens of our country and world at large from COVID-19. Under the leadership of our CEO, Adar C Poonawalla, our team have been working relentlessly shoulder to shoulder with our government to fight the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said in the letter.

“We assure you that with the support of the Government of India and under your kind guidance, we are trying our best by utilizing all of our resources to increase our production capacity of Covishield in the coming month also.”

In early May, SII had communicated to the Centre that production of Covishield will be ramped up to 65 million doses in June, 70 million in July and 100 million each in August and September.

India is currently using two made-in-India vaccines in its COVID-19 immunisation programme: Covishield manufactured by Pune (Maharashtra)-based SII and Covaxin of Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.

The Russian Sputnik V is the third vaccine to get approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use and is being used in a few private hospitals.