Government vaccination sites will soon offer Sputnik V for free: Top official

PUNE: The Russian-made Sputnik V will soon become the third Covid vaccine that'll be available for free at government-run vaccination sites in the country, Dr NK Arora, chairperson of the Centre's Covid-19 working group, has said.
“Currently, Sputnik V is available only in the private sector. Depending on supply, we want to make it available under our free vaccination programme soon,” he said.

Sputnik V also requires a storage temperature of -18°C. Dr Arora said cold chain facilities preserving the polio vaccines will be used to store Sputnik V — a plan which will also ensure the shot reaches the country's rural areas, he said.
As for the pace of vaccination coverage, Dr Arora said some regions may have seen slowdowns in Covid vaccinations due to the ongoing polio drives, which has taken up staff and other resources at many centres. “The Covid vaccination programme will be streamlined within the coming week,” he said.
He told TOI that more than 34 crore Covid vaccine doses have been administered so far and another 12 to 16 crore should be administered by July-end, as per schedule. In January, the Centre had said that nearly 50 crore doses would be administered by July-end to cover priority groups.
Dr Arora said Covishield and Covaxin remain a big chunk of vaccine supply. Besides the scaling up of their production, he said the addition of Sputnik V and the shots from Moderna and Zydus Cadila, will boost daily coverage, which will go up from 50 lakh a day to 80 lakh to 1 crore in the coming weeks to cover everyone over 18 (nearly 93 crore people) by the end of this year.
He added that with a recent ICMR report predicting a third wave by February or March next year, the country has a window of about eight months to finish covering the target.
He also said it's still too early to link the new Delta-plus variant to the possible third wave. India has reported 52 Covid cases involving the variant.
"Whether it will lead to a third wave will depend on universal adoption of Covid-appropriate behaviour (CAB), ramping up of vaccination drives and testing and tracing in districts," he said, adding that studies are ongoing to determine transmissibility and effects of vaccines on mutations.
He said, “So far, with 52 cases, there hasn't been exponential growth in clusters or districts that have reported the new variant. While guidelines on containment, tracing and treatment have been issued to these regions, other protocols and precautions will also help rein in the virus. The occurrence and severity of the third wave is in our hands."