Image credits : Tribune India
Fulfilling its commitment, Serum Institute of India has produced over 10 crore doses of its COVID-19 vaccine Covishield in June and thus far as India ramps up the pace of its vaccination drive within the face of a possible third wave of the virus infection. India’s COVID-19 inoculation drive has picked up pace under the new phase of universalization of COVID-19 vaccination that commenced on June 21 with around 69 lakh vaccine doses being administered on an average daily within the last six days.
The immunization data published at 7 am on Sunday showed that India administered 64. 25 lakh vaccine doses during a day, taking the cumulative number of jabs given thus far under the nationwide inoculation drive to 32. 17 crore. Consistent with information provided to the Drugs Controller General of India by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, it’s sent 45 batches of Covishield, amounting to 10. 80 crore doses, to the Central Drugs Laboratory, Kasauli for release in June.
Under the revised guidelines, vaccine doses are provided free of cost by the Centre and are allocated to states and Union Territories supported criteria like population, disease burden and therefore the progress of vaccination. The Centre procures 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced within the country. All above the age of 18 years are eligible for free of charge vaccine doses.
The Centre had earlier allowed states and personal hospitals to acquire 50 per cent of the vaccines following demands for decentralisation of the method. However, after several states complained of problems including funding, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the revised vaccine guidelines.
In order to incentivise production and encourage new vaccines, domestic manufacturers are given the choice to supply vaccines directly into private hospitals. This is often restricted to 25 per cent of their monthly production under the new guidelines.