Delay in Covaxin supply caused average daily vaccinations to dip

Delay in Covaxin supply caused average daily vaccinations to dip

Issue At BB Facility Sorted; Govt Expecting 45L Doses In July

Sushmi.Dey@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:12.07.2021 

There is a dip in average daily vaccination against Covid-19 which fell to 37.23 lakh doses in the week of July 05-10 from over 61.14 lakh doses in the week starting June 21 and nearly 42 lakh doses in the following week (June 28-July 04), Co-Win data shows.

While the decline in vaccination has raised concerns, the government is expecting to maintain a daily average of 40-45 lakh doses in July with an estimated supply of at least 12 crore doses this month, an official source said. According to the source, the slow down in vaccination is primarily because of some disruptions at Bharat Biotech’s Bengaluru plant which resulted in delay in supply of some batches of Covaxin that were expected in the beginning of this month.

“It is a new facility with large scale fermentation plant. The trial batches were disrupted during standardisation process and therefore, the supply of Covaxin was less than expected. That has been sorted out now,” the official said.

Co-Win data shows the decline is mainly driven by less number of people initiating first dose and a lower uptake in rural areas. Between June 25-30, the number of daily doses administered in rural areas were in the range of 9.9 lakh- 40.43 lakh. However, it dropped to 8 lakh-38.08 lakh doses between July 1-9.

In urban areas, the daily doses varied from 8.25 lakh-31.80 lakh doses during June 25-30, whereas during July 1-9, around 7.6 lakh -27.85 lakh doses were given.

“The combination of progressive reopening and declining vaccination numbers is dangerous. We are not really protected against the current delta variant until we fully vaccinate 60-70% of the population by December. For that we need to administer 90 lakh to 1 crore doses per day. And that needs vaccine stocks which we seem to be running short on. If we can’t vaccinate enough, I’m afraid we need to be obsessed about Covid-appropriate behavior and rethink relaxing restrictions,” says Dr Arvinder Soin, chairman, Medanta Liver Transplant Institute.

However, the average daily vaccination still remained above the pre-June 21 level and officials said with improved supplies and campaigns, pace of vaccination is likely to pick up again in the following weeks.

“The supplies are dynamic. We are constantly working with companies to ensure manufacturing capacities are increased. More vaccine supplies are also expected by August which will help the programme,” the official said.

More than 37.22 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered across the country till July 11.