Apollo Hospitals have announced that it could administer up to 1 million Covid-19 vaccines daily once they are available.
As of now, India has three Covid-19 vaccines, including two home-developed, that are in different stages of clinical testing. The results of phase 2 trials of the home-developed vaccines—ICMR-Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN and Cadila Health’s ZyCovD—are expected by early November. The third one, Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine is being handled by the Serum Institute of India. It is undergoing the third phase of trial and experts hope it could get the results by late November or early December this year.
“As the entire country awaits a vaccine for the deadly infectious disease, one of the major challenges will be around safe and orderly delivery of doses, for the population of 1.3 billion Indians, especially the vulnerable. We are happy to share that Apollo Hospitals have been strengthening its vaccine cold chain for supply and gearing up all Apollo facilities for efficient and fast administration with the highest safety standards, for up to 1 million doses per day,” said Ms Shobana Kamineni, Executive Vice-Chairperson, The Apollo Group of Hospitals.
More than 10,000 Apollo employees are undergoing the required training and would be stationed at Apollo centers to administer the vaccine. The group has 19 medicine supply hubs in India with cold chain facilities and could use its 70 hospitals, 400 plus clinics, 500 corporate health centers, 4000 pharmacies alongside the omni-channel digital platform Apollo 24/7 to ensure vaccines, when ready, could be administered.
According to Kamineni, the group has tested over 2.5 lakhs so far and treated more than 75,000 patients.