As India battles the second wave of coronavirus at a time when the vaccination drive against the contagious disease is underway in the country leading to jabs shortage, Association of Healthcare Providers (India) Director General Dr Girdhar Gyani on Sunday said that the vaccine production in the country is being ramped up and by July-August there will be enough vaccines in the country therefore we don't have to worry about its availability.
Speaking in an exclusive conversation with India TV on the ongoing vaccination drive, Dr Girdhar Gyani said we have got a little late in the planning but we have the capacity.
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Over 20 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states/UTs free of cost by the Centre so far and more than 1.84 crore doses are still available with them to administer to people, an official statement said on Sunday.
According to the Health and Family Welfare Ministry statement, the states/UTs will get about 51 lakh doses in next three days as vaccination forms an integral component of the comprehensive strategy of the government for containment and management of the pandemic (including Test, Track, Treat and Covid Appropriate Behaviour).
"Government of India has been supporting the nationwide vaccination drive by providing Covid Vaccines free of cost to the States and UTs, in addition to several efforts to ramp up its production and supply," it said.
It said that implementation of the Liberalised and Accelerated Phase 3 strategy of Covid-19 vaccination has started from May 1, and under it, every month 50 per cent of the total Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) cleared vaccine doses of any manufacturer would be procured by the Centre, which would continue to make these doses available to the states/UTs totally free of cost as was being done earlier.
The Centre has so far provided more than 20 crore vaccine doses (20,28,09,250) to states/UTs free of cost. Out of this, the total consumption, calculated based on average up to May 14, including wastages is 18,43,67,772 doses (as per data available at 7 p.m. on Saturday).
(With inputs from IANS)
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