Monthly Production Of Covishield And Covaxin To Be Scaled Up To 10 Crore And 7.8 Crore By August

Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech have informed the central government that they will scale up monthly production of their Covid-19 vaccines to 10 crore and 7.8 crore respectively by August 2021.

The Union Health Ministry along with the office of the Drugs Comptroller General of India (DGCI) had pursued the production plans of both the manufacturers for the period of June-September this year.

Bharat Biotech Director Dr V Krishna Mohan informed the centre that the indigenously-developed Covaxin’s production would shoot up to 3.32 crore in July and then 7.82 crore for the months of August and September.

Government and Regulatory Affairs Director at SII Prakash Kumar Singh told TOI, “We confirm that the quantities mentioned will be fulfilled under all circumstances. Also, we are trying our best by utilising all our resources to increase our production capacity of Covishield. In view of this, the production during June and July may also increase by some quantity.”

The government had formed an inter-ministerial group to expedite the capacity expansion of domestic vaccine manufacturing. This group comprised Joint Secretary in Department of Pharmaceuticals Rajneesh Tingal along with Joint Secretary in Ministry of Health Dr Mandeep Bhandari. They had toured the production facilities of both SII and Bharat Biotech in April.

Earlier, the Ministry of Science and Technology had officially stated on 16 April that Covaxin’s manufacturing will double by May and shoot up by six-seven times by July-August this year.