India vaccination: Does it have enough doses for all adults?

 



India's government is promising to vaccinate the entire adult population by the end of 2021.

But questions remain over whether it will have enough doses, and quality issues have emerged at one manufacturing plant.

We've looked at what we know about production capacity in India, and the factors affecting vaccine supplies there.

How much vaccine does India produce now?

The Indian government recently gave out different information for production of the two locally-made vaccines - Covishield and Covaxin - which are the mainstay of the country's vaccine programme.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) makes Covishield (under licence from AstraZeneca), whilst Bharat Biotech makes the locally-developed Covaxin.

On 20 July, the Health Ministry responded to a question in parliament by saying that Covishield production "is planned to be increased" from an estimated 110 million to more than 120 million doses a month.

But it in response to another question on the same subject, the government used a slightly higher figure of 130 million a month "estimated production quantity".

We asked the SII about this, and the company made clear the July monthly production capacity for Covishield is between 110 and 120 million doses, with no immediate plans to increase it further.

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