Covid-19 vaccine needs an injection of pace to keep up with syringe demand

The inoculation programme may suffer from a syringe shortage

As the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination programme gathers pace, demand for syringes is in danger of overshooting supply. Anticipating a demand-supply mismatch, the Direct­orate General of Foreign Trade put curbs on the export of syringes and needles this Monday.

India needs around 300 million syringes to inoculate its children annually. But it needs close to that number every month for the Covid-19 vaccination drive.

Syringe producers, therefore, need to inject some pace to keep up with this demand. Vaccine availability in India surpasses the production rate of auto-disable (AD) syringes, and buffer stocks were inadequately created, Rajiv Nath, chairman and