VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday reiterated that the Centre should explore alternatives to ramp up Covid vaccine production in order to fill the gaps in the vaccination drive and meet the existing demand.“In the fight against the Covid pandemic, vaccination is the only way left for the people. However, in view of the limited production of vaccines, it is imperative for all to learn to co-exist with coronavirus with all precautions for the time being,” the Chief Minister said.
It must be mentioned here that Jagan was among the first to call for technology transfer of manufacturing Covaxin to ramp up its production. In this regard, he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi a couple of days ago, suggesting that he direct Bharat Biotech to transfer technology of manufacturing Covaxin and ICMR-NIV to provide the viral strain to interested and capable companies for producing the vaccine.
He urged the Prime Minister to explore the possibility of involving all such production firms and enable them with technology, intellectual property rights, patents etc to deliver the vaccine as quickly and affordable as possible. He suggested that anyone who can manufacture or is interested in manufacturing the vaccine should be encouraged to do so in the larger public interest. Entire manufacturing capacity should be mobilised and put to use in this testing time, he had said in his letter.
Following Jagan’s letter to the Prime Minister, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and several other leaders from non-BJP ruled states shot off a letter to the Prime Minister with similar suggestions. On Thursday, Dr VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, said in the wake of suggestions pouring in that Covaxin should be given to other companies for manufacturing, Bharat Biotech has welcomed it.
Stating that the vaccine is inactivated live virus and this is done only in BSL3 labs, he said not every company has this capability. “We give an open invitation to companies who want to do this. Companies which want to manufacture Covaxin should do it together. The government will assist so that capacity is increased,” Paul said.
During the release of financial assistance to farmers under YSR Rythu Bharosa - PM Kisan on Thursday, the Chief Minister said there are 26 crore people in the 45 years and above category in the country and each of them has to be given two doses, that is, a total of 52 crore doses are needed.
“If we take those between 18 and 45 years, the country’s population in this category is 60 crore, that is 120 crore doses are required to vaccinate them. That is, a total 172 crore doses are needed to vaccinate these two groups alone. Till date, only 18 crore doses were released and administered, that is just 10-11 %,” he explained
In Andhra Pradesh, there are 1.48 crore people in the 45+ age group and the State needs 2.96 crore doses. There are two crore people in the 18-45 age group and four crore doses are needed to vaccinate them. That is, the State requires nearly 7 crore doses to administer vaccines to these two groups. However, till date only 10-11 per cent of it was received, he said.
Only two companies are manufacturing vaccines across the country with just seven crore doses per month. While Bharat Biotech is producing one lakh doses , Serum Institute is making six lakh doses a day. With this situation, the fight against Covid would get rather difficult, Jagan said.
State needs 7 cr vaccines