Debunking news reports that India has not placed freshorders for Covid vaccines with the Serum Institute of India (SII) and BharatBioTech since March, the Union government on Monday said such reports arecompletely incorrect and are not based on facts.
The media reports suggested that the last order placedwith the two vaccine makers (100 million doses with SII and 20 million doseswith Bharat Biotech) was in March.
"It is clarified that 100 percent advance of Rs1,732.50 crore was released to Serum Institute of India (SII) on April 28 for11 crore doses of Covishield vaccine during May, June, and July, and wasreceived by them on April 28. As of date, against the last order of 10 croredoses for supplies of Covishield vaccine, 8.744 crore doses have been deliveredtill May 3," the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in astatement.
Additionally, a 100 percent advance of Rs 787.50 crore wasreleased on April 28 to Bharat Biotech India Ltd (BBIL) for 5 crore Covaxindoses during May, June, and July, and was received by them on the same day.
"As on date against the last order of 2 crore dosesfor supplies of Covaxin vaccine, 0.8813 crore doses have been delivered till03.05.2021. Hence to say that fresh orders have not been placed by the Governmentof India is not correct," the ministry said.
Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla also issuesa statement, saying that his company has received orders for 26 crore doses.
"As of today, we received total orders of over 26crore doses of which we supplied more than 15 crore doses. We have also got 100percent advance of Rs 1,732.50 crore by GoI for the next tranche of 11 croredoses in the next few months. Another 11 crore doses would be supplied in thesecond channel for states and private hospitals in the next few months,"Poonawalla said in a statement.
Earlier, the Financial Times reported Poonawalla assaying that vaccine shortage could continue in India till July.
The production is expected to increase from about 60million-70 million doses a month to 100 million in July, Poonawalla was quotedas saying in the report.
When the number of new infections began declining inJanuary, "everybody really felt that India had started to turn the tide onthe pandemic". The authorities did not expect to confront a secondwave," the report quoted him as saying.
Poonawalla said that his comments may have been"misinterpreted".
"First of all, vaccine manufacturing is aspecialized process, it is therefore not possible to ramp up productionovernight. We also need to understand that the population of India is huge andto produce enough doses for all adults is not an easy task. Even the mostadvanced countries and companies are struggling in relatively smallerpopulations," he explained.