Govt rejects SII request to export 50 lakh doses of Covishield to UK

Amid growing concerns over the spread of the COVID-19 across the country, the central government turned down a request from the Serum Institute of India (SII) to export 50 lakh doses of ‘Covishield’ to the United Kingdom. The 50 lakh Covishield vaccine doses are expected to be earmarked to vaccinate people between 18-44 years of age.

New Delhi: With states across India reporting a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, the central government has recently turned down a request from the Serum Institute of India (SII) to export 50 lakh doses of ‘Covishield’ to the United Kingdom.

The government said that these doses will now be made available for India’s domestic use.

Accordingly, the Centre has also asked the state governments to contact the Pune based SII to get these doses of the vaccine.

Officials in the health ministry said that these Covishield doses will now be used to vaccinate people in the age group of 18-45 years.

Earlier on March 23, the SII officials sought permission from the health ministry to supply 50 lakh doses of Covishield to the UK, citing an agreement with AstraZeneca in this regard.

The SII assured that India’s own anti-coronavirus vaccination programme will not be disturbed due to this supply.

However, a fresh label needs to be fixed on the vials as the earlier vials were labelled as ‘COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca’ injections and not ‘Covishield’.

“States can order vaccines directly from the supplier,” said Luv Aggrawal, joint secretary in the Union Health Ministry.

Aware of the fact that the production of vaccines needs to be scaled up, Aggrawal said that the government is in continuous discussion with the vaccine manufacturers.

States were also briefed about procurement from the ‘other than the government of India’ channel which has been opened in the Liberalised Phase-III strategy of vaccination.

In view of the payments pending from States to the private vaccine manufacturers, the States were advised by the Centre to constitute a dedicated team at the State level of 2 or 3 senior officers to coordinate with vaccine manufacturers on a daily basis and secure state government supplies promptly.

“This team is to also coordinate with private hospitals to facilitate their procurement thereby maintaining the momentum of the overall vaccination exercise in the State,” another official in the health ministry said.

Meanwhile, Union Health Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan reviewed the status of COVID vaccination with Health Secretaries and NHM MDs of States and UTs, through a video conference (VC) Tuesday evening.

Following the review meeting, it was emphasized that states need to ensure all beneficiaries who have taken the first dose are prioritised for the second doses.

“States can reserve at least 70 per cent of the vaccines supplied to them from the Government of India channel for second dose vaccination and remaining 30 per cent for the first dose. This however is indicative. States have the liberty to enhance this to as much as 100 per cent,” Bhushan reiterated this during his review meeting with the state representatives.

The meeting also discussed the issue of spikes in COVID-19 cases. The officials in the meeting also discussed the possibility of under-reporting of COVID cases.

Giving an example of Pune, the health ministry said that stringent management is a key to control the spike in cases.

“40.5 per cent weekly positivity on March 9. But due to the night curfew along with strict measures being taken by the administration, the weekly positivity rate has been decreased to 23.4 per cent at present,” the health ministry said.

The health ministry also lauded the Mumbai administration for effective citizen communication & decentralization of processes in their fight against COVID-19.