Kolkata: Some private hospitals in Kolkata are burdened with large stocks of Covaxin, which has several takeovers compared to covishield, making them worry about the possibility of wasting doses that will pass their expiration date in a few months.
The number of Covaxin recipients has been limited to a daily number of 10 and 40 in most hospitals, compared with an average of 500-plus recipients of covishield.
Some believe that Covaxin may have more participants after being received in countries that still insist on covishield to enter.
Amri has a 45,000 stock of covaxin doses.
It has been given only 50-60 doses of a total of 600 vaccinations a day.
“It can be saved for three months.
This is an alarming area because we don’t know what to do with this.
The demand for Covaxin has been consistently low.
We try to push it and tell the recipient that it is also an approved vaccine.
But because You cannot travel to certain countries with Covaxin, people somehow reluctantly, “said CEO Amri Rupak Barua.
He added that who tends to approve covaxin next month.
“We hope for a request burst and hope that we managed to spend our shares,” Barua said.
One of the big advantages of Covaxin is that the second dose can be taken in four weeks.
“But so far that has not become an incentive for the recipient to do it,” Barua said.
The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) has around 1,500 covaxin doses in stock with daily consumption of only 20 doses.
“At this level, we will find it difficult to spend short-term stocks and may end with the risk of having several unexpected shares approaching the expiration date, thus ending as a waste.
To avoid this, we will try to use the same in the outreach vaccination program We or even free camps that we arrange on weekends to use available stocks, “said RTIICS ZONAL HEAD R VENKATESH.
Superspecialty Medica Hospital has 760 doses of covaxin doses while daily consumption is only 10-15 doses.
“For covishield, the average consumption has been 200-250.
But we hope to spend stock Covaxin over the next few months,” said Chairson Medica Alok Roy.
Peerless Hospital reduced Covaksin’s request a few months ago and is now left with 160 doses.
“The demand is very low and our average daily administration is only 20-22.
At this level, we are worried about running out of our stock because this dose will expire in November,” said CEO Peerless Sudipta Mitra.
The hospital tries to emphasize the main advantage offered by Covaxin, especially for those who need to travel abroad – short gaps are only 4 weeks between doses compared to 84 covishield days.
“But it has not worked because Covaxin has not been recognized in most countries.
Second, there is a belief that Covaxin is less effective than covishield,” said a head of a hospital.
According to ICMR, the reason behind reducing the gap between the covaxin dose is the fact that it can provide an optimal level of protection only after the two doses have been given.
The first covishield dose, on the other hand, remains effective for 12 weeks.