Nation’s vaccine effort slows as dose gap trumps output jump
Domestic production of AstraZeneca has more than tripled since May
India’s vaccination campaign has slowed despite amassing record stockpiles of vaccine, health ministry data showed yesterday, as authorities maintain a wider-than-usual gap between doses in a strategy that has boosted coverage.
Domestic production of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which accounts for nearly 90 per cent of administered doses, has more than tripled since May, when a supply shortage prompted India to double the period between doses to between 12 and 16 weeks.
That gap, exceeding the 8 to 12 weeks recommended by WHO, has allowed India to give at least one vaccine dose to 74 per cent of its 944 million adults, with just 30 per cent getting the full complement of two.
100m doses exceeded
The AstraZeneca vaccine, known as Covishield, accounts for 861 million doses of India’s total injected figure of 977.6 million, while Covaxin has a dose interval of four to six weeks.
Over the last few days, daily stocks of all Covid-19 vaccines have exceeded 100 million doses, the health ministry figures show,. In contrast, daily vaccinations have dropped to an average of 5 million doses this month and even less in the past week, off a daily peak of 25 million last month. The ministry said it followed recommendations from a group of experts in making any changes to dosage, arrived at by weighing up “scientific and empirical” evidence.