New Delhi: The back-to-back Covid review meetings by the government last week may not have done anything to halt the Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi, but it has certainly pushed up daily vaccination numbers in the country sharply.
According to data recorded by the CoWin portal, in the week spanning 11-17 December, the average number of Covid vaccine doses administered daily ranged between 45,000-57,000 per day — barring Sunday, 17 December, when it fell to about 6,565 doses. In the 18-25 December week, the number rose sharply, crossing one lakh doses daily for two days, 23 and 24 December.
Till 3 PM Monday, 26 December, over 68,000 vaccine doses had already been administered.
The spurt coincided with the meetings called first by Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on 21 December and then by Prime Minister Narendra Modi the following day, to review the country’s preparedness to handle Covid cases, in the wake of an upsurge in infections in countries like China.
On 25 December, despite it being Christmas and a Sunday, the total doses administered stood at 25,937, according to CoWin data. The number is about three times that administered on 18 December.
The largest jump, predictably has been in the number of precaution (or third) doses administered. In the 11-18 December week, the number of precaution doses administered daily ranged between 27,000-36,000 approximately. In the ensuing week, when the rising Covid numbers in China resulted in a flurry of Union government meetings, the number of precaution doses administered per day was in the 30,000-83,000 range.
The sharpest spurt again was on 23 and 24 December, when 77,992 and 82,433 precaution doses respectively, were administered.
According to government data, so far about 22.35 crore booster or precaution doses has been administered, which is 27 per cent of the total population eligible for boosters. The first and second dose coverages currently stand at 97% and 90 per cent, respectively.
India rolled out precaution doses for all adults from April this year, but with Covid numbers having remained low since then, the uptake has been poor for much of the year. In his address to the Rajya Sabha last week Mandaviya had said that India is reporting an average of 153 Covid cases per day.
Five vaccines are currently being administered in India for different age groups. These are Covishield, Covaxin, Corbevax, Sputnik V and Covovax. Covishield and Covaxin are also being administered as booster, while last week during the review meetings, a decision was taken to roll out Bharat Biotech’s nasal vaccine iNCOVACC as a booster dose.
ThePrint reached the health ministry over phone and WhatsApp for information about Covid vaccine stocks. This article will be updated when a response is received.
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Enough vaccine stocks available, say companies
The low uptake of vaccines had made manufacturers stop production some time back, according to sources in the companies.
The Serum Institute of India, whose Covishield has been the mainstay of India’s Covid vaccination programme, stopped production a year ago and is now focussed on the production of Covovax, its protein subunit vaccine. Speaking on the sidelines of the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network meeting in October this year, SII CEO Adar Poonawala had said that the company was forced to dump about 100 million doses of Covisheld because of expiry.
Speaking to ThePrint, company sources said that it currently has about 20 million (2 crore) doses in stock and can resume Covishield production if the need arises.
“We are focussed on Covovax currently and have just submitted data on its use as a (heterologous) booster shot. It has been approved in several countries abroad and we are very hopeful,” said a source. A heterologous booster shot is when the vaccine administered as a booster or precaution dose is different from the original vaccine.
A Bharat Biotech spokesperson told ThePrint that the company has more than 50 million doses of Covaxin readily available in vials, and over 200 million doses as drug substance.
“Additional production capacity is also available to meet product demand,” they said.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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