Amid state governments claiming shortages of the Covid-19 vaccines and media reports alleging that the Central government did not place fresh orders for vaccines, Government of India and vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) issued their respective statements on Monday to address the matter.
The government stated that news reports suggesting that the Centre placed its last order with SII (for 100 million doses) and Bharat Biotech (for 20 million doses) in March 2021 are “completely incorrect, and are not based on facts”.
“It is clarified that 100% advance of Rs. 1732.50 cr (after TDS Rs. 1699.50 cr) was released to Serum Institute of India (SII) on 28.04.2021 for 11 crore doses of Covishield vaccine during May, June and July, and was received by them on 28.04.2021. As on date, against the last order of 10 crore doses for supplies of Covishield vaccine, 8.744 crore doses have been delivered till 03.05.2021,” the statement said.
About orders placed for Bharat Biotech’s indigenously manufactured vaccine, Covaxin, the government stated, “Additionally, 100% advance of Rs. 787.50 cr (after TDS Rs. 772.50 cr) was released on 28.04.2021 to Bharat Biotech India Ltd (BBIL) for 05 crore Covaxin doses during May, June and July, and was received by them on 28.04.2021. As on date against the last order of 02 crore doses for supplies of Covaxin vaccine, 0.8813 crore doses have been delivered till 03.05.2021.”
Adar Poonawalla, CEO of SII, also set the record straight in a statement which read, “We have been working closely with the Government of India since April last year. We have got all kinds of support, be it scientific, regulatory and financial. As of today, we have received total orders of over 26 crore doses, of which we supplied more than 15 crore doses.”
“We have also got 100% advance of Rs. 1732.50 crore by GoI for the next tranche of 11 crore doses in the next few months,” affirming the Centre’s statement and adding that another 11 crore doses would be supplied in the second channel for states and private hospitals in the upcoming months.
As of 2 May 2021, the Centre has provided more than 16.54 crore vaccine doses to states/UTs free of cost, and more than 78 lakh doses are still available with them to be administered, the GoI release stated. “More than 56 lakh doses in addition will be received by the states/UTs in the next three days,” SII further assured.
The government also clarified that the Centre, under the Liberalised Pricing & Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy, will continue to procure its share of 50% of the vaccines cleared monthly by the Central Drugs Laboratory and make them available to state governments free of cost as was done earlier.
These statements came in the wake of multiple media reports alleging that the Centre failed in placing timely orders for vaccines and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “declared victory” over Covid-19, showing a lack of foresight. To counter such reports, videos of the PM in a virtual meeting with state CMs have also been made available in the public domain in which the Prime Minister can be clearly seen warning Chief Ministers of the second peak of the infection in the country, questioning the dip in testing rates and vaccinations in worst-hit districts, suggesting measures to curb the spread of the virus in Tier-2 and Tier-3 regions, identifying virus variants through genome analysis, and directing state governments to enforce micro-containment zones.