India Covid crisis: Delhi CM demands vaccine formula be shared to scale up production

Top Stories

Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters

Delhi - He also pushed for a national policy to inoculate every Indian over the next few months.

By Web report

  • Follow us on
  • google-news
  • whatsapp
  • telegram

Published: Tue 11 May 2021, 2:36 PM

The Modi government is under intense pressure to take drastic action that would put a halt to the current Covid crisis and sort out the acute shortage of vaccines India is facing at the moment.

ALSO READ:


>> India Covid crisis: 11 patients die as oxygen supply delayed at Andhra hospital

While Maharashtra ministers on Tuesday lambasted the central government for its failure to ensure vaccination for large numbers, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also demanded that the government make the two existing producers of the vaccine share the formula with others to scale up production.


“Only two companies are producing vaccines,” said Kejriwal. “They produce only six to seven crore (60 to 70 million) a month. This way, it will take over two years to vaccinate everyone, and many waves will have come by then. It is important to increase vaccine production and frame a national plan.”

Warning of the acute shortage of vaccines, he demanded there was need to boost manufacturing on a war footing and also having a national policy to inoculate every Indian over the next few months.

Kejriwal also wrote to Modi, urging him to allow others to produce the vaccines. “The centre should collect the formula from these two and give it to the others so they can produce vaccines safely," he added. “The centre has the power to do this in difficult times. Every Indian should be vaccinated over the next few months.”

The Delhi chief minister also complained that his government, currently administering 125,000 doses a day, wanted to vaccinate 300,000 daily. “We aim to vaccinate all residents within three months, but we are facing a shortage of vaccines.”

ALSO READ:

>> India Covid crisis: Indian doctors warn against cow dung as coronavirus cure

Sadly, even as the Covid crisis worsens across the country, spreading its tentacles to new areas, there is a sharp fall in the availability of the vaccines, especially in rural areas. An analysis by Indian Express revealed that 37 ‘surge’ districts have reported a more than 50 per cent drop in jabs.


More news from