Owner and CEO of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla, told on Monday that the company has enough raw materials to produce millions more doses of its Covishield vaccine, therefore there is no scarcity of the shot.

He said "At present, we have about 20 million doses of Covishield ready with us. Our monthly production capacity is 100 million doses for each vaccine - Covishield and Covovax. We can tune it up or down as per production requirements. We even have enough raw materials with us to meet demands." 

Following the increase in COVID cases in several countries, the Center instructed states and UTs to increase immunization coverage and surveillance, and as a result, Covishield booster dose uptake has increased nationwide. More Covishield doses have now been requested from the Center by a number of states. For instance, the Maharashtra government has asked for 10 lakh doses of the vaccine. The state has 17 lakh doses of Covaxin, but there are none left in its Covishield reserves.

Poonawalla said that there was no need to fear and that India is in good shape in terms of its ability to produce vaccines and its immunization coverage rate.

Dr. Jitendra Oswal, deputy director of Bharati Hospital said that the private hospitals in the area are once more receiving inquiries from locals regarding Covishield boosters. But because there were fewer inventories, they were directed to municipally run immunization facilities, and these facilities are reporting Covishield shortages.

Covid vaccination program in India has a total of three doses—the first two and a booster shot six months later. 

Dr. NK Arora, chair of the Covid-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization also agreed and said that states should promote booster uptake and the demand for the Covid vaccination has increased recently.

(Source: https://health.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/pharma/no-shortage-of-covishield-have-enough-raw-material-for-doses-siis-adar-poonawalla/96534691)