New Delhi: The Union government Friday approved a grant of Rs 65 crore to Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech, and similar grants to three other public sector undertakings, to double the production of indigenously developed Covid vaccine - Covaxin - by May-June under its Mission Covid Suraksha programme, which was announced under Atma Nirbhar Bharat scheme launched last year.
Under the mission Covid Suraksha, the department of biotechnology is providing financial support as a grant to vaccine manufacturing facilities to enhance the production of indigenously developed vaccines.
“The current production capacity of indigenously developed Covaxin vaccine will be doubled by May-June 2021 and then increased nearly 6-7 fold by July-August 2021,” said the government.
The plan is to increase the production of Covaxin from 1 crore vaccine doses in April this year to 6-7 crore vaccine doses per month by July-August.
“The production is expected to reach nearly 10 crore doses per month by Sep 2021,” said the government.
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As a part of the plan, the capacity of Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech and other public sector manufacturers will be upgraded.
The Centre is providing financial support to the tune of Rs 65 crore for Bharat Biotech’s new facility in Bengaluru, which is being repurposed to increase the capacity of vaccine production.
Assistance to 3 PSU vaccine producers
In addition to Bharat Biotech, the grant is being provided to 3 other public sector vaccine manufacturers.
The Centre will provide a grant of Rs 65 crore to Mumbai based state government-owned Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Limited to develop its facility for vaccine manufacturing.
Though the state PSU has asked for 12 months to complete the task but according to officials it has been asked to develop the capacity in next six
Once it becomes operational, the facility will have a capacity of 20 million doses per month.
The Centre is also providing financial assistance to Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL), Hyderabad, a facility under National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Limited (BIBCOL), Bulandshahr, a Central PSU under the Department of Biotechnology.
According to the plan, these two PSUs will also develop facilities to provide 10-15 million doses per month by August-September.
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Central team visits vaccine manufacturers
According to officials, inter-ministerial teams had visited the sites of two main vaccine manufacturers in the country, Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech, a few weeks ago to get their inputs on how to ramp up the production.
In this period, there have been extensive reviews and feasibility studies to ramp up the production of Covid vaccines in the country, they said.
Vaccine Crisis
An unprecedented spike in the number of new Covid cases in April this year overwhelmed the country’s medical infrastructure in the worst affected cities and states as the number went up from average 10-12 thousand average daily new cases in February to over 2 lakh daily new cases in the last three days.
The second Covid wave coincided with the government’s decision to expand the coverage of vaccines to all people above the age of 45 years as authorities are racing against the time to vaccinate 30 crore people by August.
However, it also led to complaints by States about the shortage of vaccines. Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope went public to complain that the Centre was not providing enough vaccines to the worst affected State, a charge rebutted by Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.
In order to tide over the vaccine shortage, this week India’s drug regulator approved Russia’s Sputnik-V vaccine for emergency use and also announced fast-tracking of vaccine candidates approved in developed countries like the US, UK, Japan and other WHO-approved vaccine candidates.
Industry demands PLI for vaccine production
Early this week, India Inc welcomed the government’s decision to clear the Russian vaccine but said that it may not be sufficient to meet the country’s vaccination requirements.
“We need to work on a mission mode to substantially ramp up COVID vaccine manufacturing and supply,” said industry body FICCI.
The FICCI said several States in the country have been facing a shortage of COVID vaccines over the past few days, compelling state governments to scale down their daily vaccination targets.
The FICCI said the country needs to maintain the momentum of manufacturing for at least the next couple of years as there may be a need for the revaccination of people due to new mutations of the Covid-19 virus.
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“Since the cost of vaccines have been capped by the government, the vaccine manufacturers need to be provided with appropriate incentives for ramping up the production,” said the industry body, demanding a production linked incentive (PLI) scheme to support vaccine manufacturers.
