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India is currently implementing a Covid vaccination drive for its entire 94-crore adult population. The government has set a target of inoculating every adult individual by December 2021 and, earlier this month, union minister G Kishan Reddy reiterated this.
The three vaccines currently being administered in India are all two-shot vaccines: Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V. Covishield and Covaxin are manufactured in India; the Government of India has promised to deliver 85 crore of both of these vaccines between October and December — 28.25 crore in October, 28.25 crore in November, and 28.5 crore doses in December.
Out of this, the Serum Institute of India (SII), which produces Covishield, is expected to provide 23 crore doses in each of these three months.
Going by the current health ministry figures, 25.5% of India’s adults are fully vaccinated. That means around 24 crore people. The number of people who have received only a single dose so far stands at 41 crore. If we combine these two, it means the country still has 29 crore unvaccinated adult individuals.
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If India has to fully vaccinate its entire adult population of 94 crore individuals, it needs 188 crore doses. Of this, 89 crore or 47% of the doses have been administered in the nine months of the drive so far.
This means India needs to administer another 53% or 99 crore doses during the 92 days of the next three months.
Can the Government of India achieve this deadline?
No. It cannot.
And this time, the availability of the vaccines is not the reason, something that was seen during the 2nd Covid wave between April and June, when a shortage of doses even forced a stoppage of the inoculation drive in many areas.
Availability of the vaccine is no more an issue for the government. It has already assured the delivery of 85 crore doses of the vaccine until December while talks are also on to procure more.
The supply of at least 5 crore doses of two other vaccines – 2.5 crore doses from Zydus Cadila and 2.5 crore of Sputnik V produced in India by Panacea Biotec is in the pipeline during these three months.
Also, some additional deals may happen soon. SII is expected to launch the Covavax vaccine, the Indian version of the US vaccine Novavax this month. According to Serum Institute, it has the capacity to produce 8 crore doses of Covavax a month.
India has also paid in advance for 30 crore doses from Hyderabad-based Biological E for its under-development Corbevax vaccine. Bharat Biotech’s under-development nasal vaccine could also be an addition once it is approved.
So, the availability of vaccines, in fact, is not going to be a problem.
The main problem now is the gap between administering two doses of a vaccine. Covishield, which accounts for 88% of total doses administered in the country so far, has a minimum prescribed gap of 12 weeks or 84 days.
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Now, let’s do some simple calculations.
29 crore adults are still unvaccinated. Going by the 88% correlation, around 25.5 crore individuals are supposed to get Covishield only. Now if the country manages to partially vaccinate its entire adult population by this month, many of the recipients receiving the first dose of the Covishield vaccine will have their next due date after 84 days – that will fall somewhere in January 2021.
A way to meet the December target is to reduce the gap between the two doses of the Covishield vaccine. But the government is not in favour of that. As per NK Arora, chairman, Covid-19 working group of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), it would be ethically and scientifically an incorrect step. “These reports about the Centre likely to reduce the gap for Covishield administration in the private vaccination centres are not correct,” he said. There cannot be different rules for different categories of people; that would be discriminatory and science does not work like that. In case of modifications for students needing to travel for studies and other people taking international travel, there was a compelling reason to modify the guidelines.”
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