As demands grow for opening up ‘vaccination for all’,  Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla has said that the production capacity to manufacture Covishield, one of the two Covid vaccines being used in India, is ‘very stressed’. The company has so far delivered around 100 million doses and India needs to vaccinate a population of more than 1.3 billion.

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“The globe needs this vaccine… we are prioritising the needs of India (but) we are still short of being able to supply to every Indian,” Poonawalla told NDTV. Speaking on the cost of production of the vaccine, which his company is providing at subsidised rates, Poonawalla said that SII needed Rs 3,000 crore in order to ramp up capacity to scale up production by June.

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India is currently in the middle of the second COVID-19 wave and is logging 80,000 to 1 lakh case almost everyday. The wave, which is more aggressive and quicker, has spread to tier two cities and rural areas, unlike the first wave last year. Amid these frightening stats, India recently opened up the vaccination drive for all those above the age of 45 but demands have been growing to open up the  inoculation for all. But, do we have the supplies and logistics to do that?

The SII produces between 60 and 65 million doses per month presently and it has provided around 100 million doses to the centre and exported 60 million. Poonawalla added that even if the budget was provided now, it would take at least three months to ramp up production. SII has approached the government for a finance push, if it doesn’t work out the company plans to approach banks for loan, the SII CEO told the channel.

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 On Tuesday, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan explained why vaccinations cannot be opened for everybody at this moment. “Globally vaccination drives have a single goal: to curb deaths of the most vulnerable group affected by Covid-19,” he said.

Two vaccines are being produced in India — Covaxin, from Bharat Biotech International Ltd., and Covishield, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India Pvt. Both need to ramp up production for India to be able to vaccinate the entire population.