Indian Immunologicals may start supplying 2 mn Covaxin doses by Sep: Govt

NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul said there were some initial hiccups related to standardisation quality assurances of batches of vaccines at Bangalore plant, which delayed production

Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL) may start supplying 20 lakh doses of Covaxin by September, the government said on Tuesday.

On the production plan of Covaxin at various facilities, NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul said there were some initial hiccups related to standardisation and quality assurances of the batches of vaccines at the Bangalore plant of Bharat Biotech, which delayed the production of the anti-Covid vaccine.

"The quantum jump in the production capacity of Covaxin will come as the Bangalore facility has got activated. There was a little delay because of standardisation processes, fine-tuning quality assurances and bringing it to the level of efficient flow. As a new industry was started, validating it, standardising it took some time, so there was a delay," he told reporters here.

Paul said the company has started an additional facility at Ankleshwar in Gujarat where 60 lakh doses of the vaccine will be manufactured.

"...so they did put in the efforts. There were some hiccups which we should respect and not demoralise their efforts," he added.

Paul was replying to a question at a press conference on the delay of Covaxin production and over a few initial batches of the vaccine from Bangalore not qualifying.

As for IIL, he said it may start supplying 20 lakh doses of Covaxin "by September or late August".

Paul said Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Limited, the Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre and BIBCOL need substantial infrastructure development to manufacture Covaxin.

These public sector undertakings (PSUs) are expected to be activated for supplying Covaxin by December.

"Substantive infrastructure is being build, modified or re-purposed, which will take a little time, but we should expect more clarity on the timeline. Broadly, we should look at November-December for the activation of those additional PSUs, but efforts are going on, tech transfer is going on. IIL is located in Hyderabad itself and we are now visualising some degree of contribution," Paul said.