Vaccine production from domestic players to be enough to vaccinate all by year-end: Centre tells Supreme Court

vaccine policy india — Image Source : PTI
Vaccine production from domestic players to be enough to vaccinate all by year-end: Centre tells Supreme Court

The Centre on Monday told Supreme Court that entire eligible population will be vaccinated by 2021-end. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, LN Rao and SR Bhat that the production from domestic vaccine producers - SII, Bharat Biotech and Reddy's Lab - will be enough to vaccinate all who are over 18 years of age.

Besides, the Centre is holding talks with firms like Pfizer for the supply of doses. He said that if the government succeeds, timeline of completing vaccination by year-end will change.

The Centre's resonse came during a hearing in a suo motu case related to supply of essential medicines, vaccines and medical oxygen to coronavirus patients. The court had asked the Centre about the vaccine-procurement policy by referring to the fact that states are in the process of issuing global tenders to procure jabs for coronavirus.

"Is this policy of the Central government?" the SC asked and also sought to know from the Centre on mandatory registration on CoWIN app for Covid vaccination as it noted that "people in rural areas may face difficulties".

Earlier, the top court had constituted a 12-member National Task Force to formulate a methodology for the scientific allocation of oxygen to the states and Union territories for saving lives of COVID patients and to facilitate a public health response to the pandemic.