Centre to ramp up vaccine production amid Covid-19 surge

With India experiencing a crunch in the supply of Covid-19 vaccines, the Centre on Friday announced a ten-fold increase in the production of Covaxin over the next six months besides expanding the production capacities of the homegrown vaccine at four new sites including, one of which is Bengaluru.

The Union Science Ministry would invest more than Rs 130 crore to set up the new facilities at four sites, which may take a few months to be ready for production.

In the meantime, Covaxin’s manufacturer Bharat Biotech would gradually jack up its existing production capacity over the next few months to deal with the current crisis.

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“The current production capacity of Covaxin will be doubled by May-June 2021 and further increased nearly 6-7 fold by July-August 2021. This would mean increasing the production from one crore vaccine doses in April 2021 to 6-7 crore doses by July–August and reach nearly 10 crore doses per month by September 2021,” the Union Science Ministry said in a release.

Bharat Biotech has a capacity to manufacture about 12.5 million doses of Covaxin at the moment, while Serum Institute can produce 70-100 million doses of Covishield per month.

The decision to augment India’s Covid-19 vaccine production capacities was taken after inter-ministerial teams had visited Serum Institute plant in Pune and Bharat Biotech plant at Hyderabad to get their inputs on how the production can be ramped up.

The Centre will now invest more than Rs 130 crore to enhance vaccine production capacities at four new sites — Bharat Biotech’s new unit in Bengaluru, Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation in Mumbai, Indian Immunologicals at Hyderabad and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Limited, Bulandshahr. The funds will come from the Department of Biotechnology.

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India currently uses two shots, Covaxin and AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, which is being manufactured by Serum Institute under the brand name Covishield, to vaccinate its target population. A third vaccine, Russian origin Sputnik V, has received regulatory approval but is yet to come to the market.

The DBT will release Rs 65 crore to Bharat Biotech for its new plant in Bengaluru, which is being repurposed to increase the capacity of vaccine production.

Haffkine Biopharma, a public sector unit of the Maharashtra government, will get Rs 65 crore to manufacture Covaxin. While Haffkine sought 12 months to start the manufacturing, the Centre asked the company to complete the task urgently within 6 months. The facility will have a capacity of 20 million doses per month.

Indian Immunologicals Limited Hyderabad, a facility under National Dairy Development Board and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Limited (BIBCOL), Bulandshahr which is a central public sector enterprise under the Department of Biotechnology, will also be supported to manufacture 10-15 million doses of Covaxin per month by Aug-Sep 2021.