New Delhi: India recorded the milestone of administering one billion doses of COVID vaccines across the country. Pro-government social media users were elated at the country hit the one billion doses mark and soon hashtag #OneBillionDose was trending across social media.
However, close to 90% of the one billion doses administered in the country has come from Serum Institute which has as of Monday 18 October, has delivered 86.89 crore doses of its vaccine COVISHIELD, which is more than 36.69 crores more doses than what the company was initially expected to deliver.
NDTV Group Editor, Sreenivasan Jain in a tweet questioned the development adding that has any other comparable country to India has banked so heavily on a single manufacturer?
Taking to his official Twitter account, Jain wrote “As we hit the #OneBillionDoses landmark, noteworthy that close to 90% of that number has come from a single company – Serum Institute. Genuine question: has the vaccination programme of any other comparable country banked so heavily on a single manufacturer?”
One of the users supporting Jain’s question asserted that it was a monopoly and that it was not good for the market for an economy like India.
In May 2021, member Niti Aayog, VK Paul had said between August and December the country would get 216 crore doses, of which SII’s contribution would be 75 crore Covishield doses, Bharat Biotech would make 55 crore doses of Covaxin and Russian Sputnik vaccine would make available 15.6 crore vaccine doses. But these targets were scaled down by June end and as per the government’s affidavit in the Supreme Court, SII was to produce 50 crore doses of Covishield, Bharat Biotech was to produce 40 crore doses of Covaxin, and 10 crore doses by Sputnik.
SII delivered 86.69 crore vaccines which is 36.69 crores more doses than committed. Bharat Biotech has delivered 11.28 crore doses of Covaxin compared to the 40 crores expected from them. Russia’s Sputnik has made a minor contribution of 44.88 lakh vaccines as against 10 crore doses planned from the Russian vaccine maker
