Nearly 120 million doses of Covid vaccines will be available in June for the national Covid-19 vaccination programme, up from 79 million supplied in May, the government said while providing an advance estimate on vaccine stocks to states and UTs to enable them to plan vaccination schedules and slots accordingly.
The Centre will provide 60 million doses to states and UTs in June for inoculating those above 45 along with health and frontline workers, whereas an additional 58 million doses will be available for direct procurement by states and private hospitals for the 18-44 age group, the health ministry said.
Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India (SII) informed the government that it will be able to manufacture and supply 9-100 million doses of Covishield in June, according to letter from the company to home minister Amit Shah. The company had earlier indicated a capacity of 65 million doses in June.
Earlier, estimates drawn by the government had suggested around 100 million doses for June which included 65 million doses of Covishield, 25 million shots of Covaxin and 10 million of Sputnik. However, the Centre is likely to have revised the earlier estimates about availability of vaccine doses in June after taking into account the supplies indicated by SII in its letter to the home ministry.
Though the government has not specified the quantity of particular vaccines while indicating120 million doses for June, it has earlier said that there is usually a time lag between production and supplies to reach the respective states and vaccination centres. “The delivery schedule for this allocation will be shared in advance,” the health ministry said.
“Allocation of supplies to states/UTs is decided on the consumption pattern, population and vaccine wastage. Visibility for availability of vaccines for the entire month of June has been provided well in advance to states/UTs by the Union government as communicated to states and UTs vide letters of health ministry dated May17, May 27 and May 29,” the ministry added.
For the month of June, 61 million doses of vaccines will be supplied to states and UTs for vaccination of priority group of healthcare workers, frontline workers and those aged 45 and above as free supply from the central government. In addition, more than 58 million doses will be available for direct procurement by states/UTs and private hospitals. Therefore, in June, close to 120 million doses will be available for the national Covid vaccination programme. In May, more than 40 million vaccine doses were made available by the Centre to states. Besides, more than 39 million doses were available for direct procurement by states as well as private hospitals.
Overall, 208 million doses of anti-Covid vaccines have been administered across the country since January 16 when the government rolled out the vaccination drive. Around 43 million people had received two doses of vaccines till Sunday.
