Amid many states and Union Territories complaining of a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines, the Serum Institute of India (SII) informed the Centre that it will be able to manufacture and supply nine to 10 crore doses of Covishield in June.
Official sources told PTI that the company wrote a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah in this regard.
Stating that SII employees have been working round the clock to increase production of vaccines, the company in its letter stated that it has “Always been sincerely concerned about the protection of the citizens of India.”
"We are pleased to inform that in the month of June we will be able to manufacture and supply nine to 10 crore doses of our Covishield vaccine to the country as compared to our production capacity of 6.5 crore doses in May," Prakash Kumar Singh, the Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at SII, said in the letter.
Singh also thanked Shah for his "valuable guidance and continuous support" at various stages of their endeavour to make India 'aatmanirbhar' (self-sufficient) in Covid-19 vaccines and making it available for the people of the country.
"Serum Institute of India has always been sincerely concerned about the protection of the citizens of our country and world at large from COVID-19. Under the leadership of our CEO, Adar C Poonawalla, our team have been working relentlessly shoulder to shoulder with our government to fight the COVID-19 pandemic," he said in the letter.
"We assure you that with the support of the Government of India and under your kind guidance, we are trying our best by utilizing all of our resources to increase our production capacity of Covishield in the coming month also,” he further wrote.
In early May, SII had communicated to the Centre that production of Covishield would be ramped up to 6.5 crore in June, seven crore in July and 10 crore each in August and September.
The developments come in the backdrop of the Centre announcing that about 12 crore vaccines will be available for states and Union Territories in July.
Of these about 6 crore doses will be supplied by the Centre while another 5.8 crore doses will be available for states and UTs to procure by themselves, the Union health ministry said.
It further added that 7.94 crore Covid-19 vaccines were made available for states and UTs in the month of May.
India is currently using -- Covishield manufactured by SII and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech -- in its Covid-19 immunisation programme.
The Russian Sputnik V is the third vaccine to get approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use and is being used in a few private hospitals.
(With PTI inputs)
