Sunday, October 13, 2024

Centre rubbishes news reports it hasn’t placed vaccine orders since March





Central government on Monday refuted the news reports that it had not yet placed fresh orders for Covid-19 vaccines despite several vaccination centers across the country reporting shortages. 

Earlier several media outlets including Business Standard and Bloomsberg have reported that the government has placed  last order with the two vaccine makers (100 million doses with SII and 20 million doses with Bharat Biotech) in March 2021.

However, calling them “baseless,” the government has denied these allegations and said that the reports are “completely incorrect and not based on facts”

The statement by the government clarified that they have made 100% advanced payment for an additional 110 million doses of the SII-made AstraZeneca vaccine on April 28, which will be delivered in May, June and July. 

The government said it also paid a similar advance of ₹ 787.50 crore the same day to Bharat Biotech for five crore Covaxin doses in May, June and July and that two crore doses had been delivered till today.

“As of 2nd May 2021, Govt. of India has provided more 16.54 crore vaccine doses to States/UTs Free of Cost. More than 78 lakh doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered. More than 56 Lakh doses, in addition, will be received by the States/UTs in the next 3 days,” the health ministry stated.

Soon after this, Serum Institute of India (SII) also released their statement and wrote “We endorse this statement and the authenticity of the information. We have been working closely with the Government of India for the past year and thank it for its support. We remain committed to ramping up our vaccine production to save every life we can.”


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