Quality Issues Behind Covaxin Shortage: Covid task force head NK Arora

The supply of India's indigenous vaccine against Covid-19 -- Covaxin -- has been short from the beginning. The vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech, along with Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology, has not been able to meet demand, leading to the slow down of nationwide inoculation programme. At this rate, it is difficult for government to put up with its commitment to inoculate all adult by the year end. According to a top government adviser, the supply was slowed down because the first few batches at the company's newest facility in Bengaluru were not of the right quality.

Covid task force member NK Arora told NDTV that the government was highly depending on a much sharper rise in the production of Covaxin - one of the two main vaccines in use in India - but was set back because of the quality issues at what is the company's biggest plant globally.

"Vaccine manufacturing is almost like rocket science. We were expecting a much sharper rise in the production of Covaxin. They have started a new facility in Bengaluru. In addition three public sector undertaking are also working together to augment the total output. Ultimately we are expecting 10-12 crore doses from Bharat Biotech," said Dr Arora, who heads the Covid working group.

"The Bangalore plant was one of the largest vaccine manufacturing plants globally. But the initial couple of batches did not pass quality issues...It was not of the right quality. But the third and fourth batches have now come up which have moved forward. We hope in the next four or six weeks the vaccine production will really ramp up from Bharat Biotech," he told NDTV.

Dr Arora explained that only recently had the Bangalore plant started producing better batches. "They are on the second batch of clear quality. Now there will be rapid ramping up. In the next few weeks there will be an exponential increase in production," he said.

"I am given to understand that in the next few weeks it is possible that they will increase production several-fold," he said.

India started its vaccination programme on January 16 and has so far vaccination 47.78 crore people. Of the total, 53.67 lakh vaccine doses were administered on Monday.