Can India vaccinate its entire adult population against COVID-19 in the next four months? To do this India will need to vaccinate nearly 1 billion people over the age of 18 and this means India will need to have 2 billion doses in the next four months. Under the current supply scenario India can only produce about 132 million doses by the end of July, these include 65 million doses by Serum , 55 million doses by Bharat Biotech and 12 million doses of sputnik; all by the end of july. But what it needs is 600 million doses a month to vaccinate everyone over 18 years of age.
Till May 12, only 38.6 million people were fully vaccinated, which is less than 4% of India’s adult population and the Union Government has listed future scenarios where vaccine production will be ramped up. The central health ministry has announced that Bharat Biotech will increase production of Covaxin to 78.2 million in August, Serum Institute to increase production up to 100 million doses in August, and three public companies, Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, Indian Immunologicals Limited, and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Limited will also produce Covaxin. But even under these scenarios, India’s vaccine production will only hover around 216 million per month by August. Import of foreign vaccines that are approved by WHO* and Zydus Cadila’s DNA vaccine may ease the shortage but will not be able makeup for the deficit but even under the best-case scenario, India may not be able to vaccinate its target population by the end of 2021.

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