NEW DELHI: A review on the need of Covid vaccines is being planned with the states in the wake of the Serum Institute of India announcing that it looks to cut down the production of Covishield by half due to the falling demand, government sources said.
Covishield — the lynchpin of India’s Covid vaccination drive — comprise about 90 % of nearly 130 crore vaccine doses administered so far.
Officials in the Union health ministry said that it would ask each state for its estimate of vaccine doses needed for the coming months. “There is a huge pile of unutilised doses lying with the states and there is also saturation to some extent in the vaccination coverage as over 85 % of the eligible population has now received at least one dose while over 50 % of the adult population is also fully vaccinated,” said a senior official in the ministry.
“As the government is set to start procuring Covid vaccine by Zydus Cadila too, demands sent out to other manufacturers will get reduced as the overall demand is limited,” another official added.
While the Centre has so far provided over 139 crore vaccine doses to states, nearly 19.19 crore remain as balance and unutilised doses, still to be administered to beneficiaries.
Government sources also said that vaccine utilization patterns will also depend on India’s policy on booster and additional doses and how quickly vaccines are rolled out for kids and adolescents. “For all these issues, we are waiting for the green signal from the expert panel,” said the official.
A meeting of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization, which had met earlier this week, to discuss additional doses for the vulnerable group of population had deferred the decision.