Many New Vaccines Coming, Shortage Likely To Be Over By July-August: Dr Naresh Trehan

New Delhi: Medanta Chairman Dr Naresh Trehan on Wednesday informed that many new Coronavirus vaccines are coming to India and the shortage of the doses are likely to be over by July-August. He further added that by year-end, before December, India should be able to vaccinate 60 crore people with both doses.

“We’re the manufacturing hub of vaccines. Already 7-8 crore of doses are available per month but it needs to be ramped up. Because our population is too large it needs 60-70 crore people to be vaccinated before we can say we’ve reached herd immunity,” ANI quoted Dr Trehan saying.

On the government’s decision to keep the gap between two doses to 12- 16 weeks, Dr Trehan said, “In UK, they said that you can increase the gap between 2 doses to 12 weeks & India also adopted that. But now it is discovered in UK that (against) new B.1.617 mutation one dose is not enough & they’ve now compressed the time back to 8 weeks.”

“If you’re exposed between 2 doses, it’s better to do it around 6 weeks, 8 weeks max to get full immunity,” he added.

Moderna’s Single-Dose COVID-19 Vaccine in India Likely Next Year

Moderna is expecting to launch a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine in India next year and is in talks with Cipla among other Indian firms, while another US giant Pfizer is ready to offer 5 crore shots in 2021 itself but it wants significant regulatory relaxations including indemnification, sources said on Tuesday.

While Moderna has conveyed to Indian authorities that it does not have surplus vaccines to share in 2021, there are limited prospects of Johnson & Johnson exporting its jabs from the US to other countries in the near future, the sources privy to discussions added.

Two rounds of high-level meetings chaired by the Cabinet Secretary were held last week on the availability of vaccines in the global as well as domestic markets as it was felt that there is an urgent need to procure the jabs at a time the country is reeling under an unprecedented second wave of COVID-19 and a widening gap between supply and requirement.

Currently, the country is using two ”made-in India” jabs — Covishield and Covaxin — to inoculate its billion-plus population and has administered 20 crore doses since launching the world”s largest vaccination drive in mid-January. A third vaccine, Russian-made Sputnik V, has been approved by the government and is being used on a smaller scale at present.