Bharat Biotech injects pace into Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin supply

Constraints on the availability of India's first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine could end soon

India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vacc­ine to be approved, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research, has barely contributed 11-12 per cent to the country’s national immunisation programme against the coronavirus virus. The bulk of the vaccines for the programme have come from its peer, Serum Institute of India (SII), which is making a licensed version of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Vaxzevria, which is known as Covishield in India.

More than 720 million Covishield vaccines have been administered to Indians, while only 94.6 million Covaxin doses, or about 10 million a month, have been given so far, according