Vials of Covishield vaccine before they are packaged at a lab in the Serum Institute of India. Photo: Reuters
New Delhi: India is predicted to get around 97 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India in Pune, according to a forecast prepared by Covax.
Covax is a joint effort by the HO, the public-private global health partnership Gavi, and the foundation, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Its aim is to accelerate development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, and ensure equitable access for every country in the world.
Among other countries that will receive the AstraZeneca vaccine candidate from the Serum Institute of India are most of India’s neighbours – Afghanistan (3.02 million doses), Bangladesh (12.79 million), Pakistan (17.160 million), Sri Lanka (1.69 million), Bhutan and Maldives (108,000 each) – plus several central Asian and African countries.
Also read: Serum Institute Sits on 55 Million Covishield Doses Awaiting Government’s Call
The Business Standard reportted that Covax has not allotted any doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to India.
This could largely be due to the fact that there are infrastructural demands in distributing a vaccines requiring ultra-cold storage.
WHO has not yet granted Emergency Use Licence to the AstraZeneca vaccine, although evaluation processes are currently underway. The forecast portends that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be greenlit by the end of February. The vaccine is being marketed as ‘Covishield’ in India.
The Covax effort will attempt to distribute 240 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 1.2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine globally.
Total doses will attempt to cover 3.3% of the total population of the 145 participating countries, in the first half of this year, the forecast estimates.