The Central government is holding regular talks with national and international vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Moderna etc. to make COVID-19 vaccines available in the country, said the Health Ministry on Friday in a statement.
It said that as on date, India was using three vaccines against COVID-19 in its immunisation drive. This included two ‘made in India’ vaccines — Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, who have supplied about 7.92 crore vaccine doses in the month of May 2021.
“The manufacturing capacities have been ramped up. Vaccine being a biological product takes time for harvesting and quality testing. This cannot be done overnight to ensure a safe product. Thus, the increase in capacity of manufacturing too needs to be a guided process,” said the Ministry.
It said that the Russian Sputnik V was the third vaccine to get approval from the Drugs Controller General of India for restricted use in emergency situations and was being used in a few private hospitals.
The Health Ministry said that the government’s approach in vaccine distribution had ensured that, “90% 1st dose coverage amongst registered Health Care Workers has been achieved and around 84% coverage of 1st dose amongst registered Front Line Workers has been done so far.”
