Enable more firms to produce Covid-19 vaccines, Kejriwal urges Centre
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New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said the Centre should divide the responsibility of producing a vaccine for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) between more firms to meet the high demand. Currently, the two vaccine makers in India are Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), which manufactures Covishield and Bharat Biotech, which produces Covaxin. Kejriwal said that the national capital was going to ramp up its inoculation drive and will soon need more jabs as it would vaccinate over 3 lakh people daily. "Right now, we're administering 1.25 lakh doses every day. We'll soon begin vaccinating over 3 lakh people daily. We aim to vaccinate all residents of Delhi within the next 3 months. However, we're facing a vaccine shortage. We're left with stock that will last only a few days," Delhi CM said. "Only two companies are producing vaccines. They produce only 6-7 crore vaccines a month. This way, it'll take us over 2 years to vaccinate everyone. Many waves would've come by then. It is important to increase the vaccine production on a war footing and frame a national plan to vaccinate all," he said. Urging the Centre to intervene, the CM suggested that the formula to make vaccine doses should be shared with other firms capable of producing vaccines in a safe manner.
"Several companies should be deployed to produce vaccines, not just two. The centre should collect the formula to produce vaccines from these two companies and give them to all those that can produce vaccines safely. Centre has the power to do this in these difficult times," Kejriwal said.
