India's Vaccine Output Likely to Fall Short of Target, Sources Sayhttps://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-05-20/indias-vaccine-output-likely-to-fall-short-of-target-sources-sayNEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's output of COVID-19 shots for August-December is likely to be lower than the government's public estimate, according to internal projections shared with Reuters by two sources.
Lower-than-expected production could delay India's plans to vaccinate all its adults this year, amid fears the country will face another surge of coronavirus infections in the winter. India's ongoing second wave, the world's worst since the pandemic began, has overwhelmed its health system.
The government last week publicly estimated 1.46 billion doses of its three approved shots - AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Covaxin - would be made between August and December.
Production of the AstraZeneca vaccine, of which the Serum Institute of India (SII) is the biggest maker in the world, is expected to reach 100 million to 110 million doses a month from July and stay at that level for the foreseeable future, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
That would be at least 200 million doses less than the government's public forecast of 750 million AstraZeneca doses for the last five months of the year, a 27% shortfall.
An internal government projection for August and September shared by a second source put the monthly number of AstraZeneca doses at 100 million, out of 200 million for all the three approved shots combined.
It sounds like SII is aggressively ramping up production, and the government of India has over-estimated what can be achieved. Covaxin is a traditional inactivated virus (SARS2) vaccine developed in India.
