India to receive four more arsenals by October

According to top government officials, the government expects four additional vaccinations to join its arsenal by October, and it expects to get 20 crore vaccine doses in August and 25 crore doses in September from existing players.

The WHO nod for Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is also expected this month after August 15 as the government believes the vaccine has met all required criteria and the signs are positive. “Vaccines of Biological-E, Zydus Cadila, Novavax and Gennova are expected by October,” the source said, adding that the approvals from regulators could come through by then and some of these vaccine makers are already doing at-risk production of vaccines.

The source said the government will get 20 crore vaccine doses of Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V in August and 25 crore doses in September. “We would be able to do 1 crore daily vaccinations in September,” the source said, adding that supplies of Covaxin are expected to improve from this month.

The government is confident of a third wave of Covid-19 not hitting India, unless the unpredictability of a mutant variant emerges, the source said “We may stay at level of 40000 to 50000 daily cases or rise till about 1 lakh cases in an eventuality but are confident of not going above that,” the government source said.

The government is also confident of fully vaccinating most adults in the country by the end of December and expects that 80 per cent of all adults will be willing to get both doses of the vaccine by then, which a source said would also be a big achievement compared to all other countries. The government is however not banking much on the foreign-made vaccines — Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson — as reportedly besides seeking indemnity, some of them were also seeking sovereign guarantees that the Indian government was not willing to give.