Pune: Russian-made V Sputnik will soon become a third covid vaccine that will be available for free on the government-managed vaccination site in the country, Dr.
NK Arora, Chair of the Covid-19 Center Working Group, has said.
“At present, Sputnik V is only available in the private sector.
Depends on supply, we want to make it available under our free vaccination program immediately,” he said.
Sputnik V also requires storage temperatures -18 ° C.
Dr.
Arora says the cold chain facilities that preserve the polio vaccine will be used to store Sputnik V – a plan that will also ensure that the shots reached the country’s country, he said.
As for the vaccination coverage rate, Dr.
Arora said some areas may have seen a slowdown in Covid vaccination because of the ongoing polio drive, which has taken staff and other resources in many centers.
“Covid vaccination program will be simplified in the coming week,” he said.
He told TOI that more than 34 doses of covid crore vaccines have been provided so far and 12 to 16 other crores must be managed by Juli-end, on schedule.
In January, the center said that nearly 50 doses of Crore would be managed by Juli-end to cover priority groups.
Dr Arora said Covishield and Covaxin remained a large piece of vaccine supply.
In addition to increasing their production, he said the addition of Sputnik V and a shot from Moderna and Zydus Cadila, would increase daily coverage, which would rise from 50 lakh per day to 80 lakh to 1 crore in the coming weeks to cover everyone over 18 years (almost 93 crore people) at the end of this year.
He added that with the recent ICMR report that predicts the third wave in February or March next year, the country has a window of about eight months to complete the target.
He also said it was too early to link the new Delta-Plus variant to the third possible wave.
India has reported 52 Covid cases involving a variant.
“Will it lead to the third wave it will depend on the universal adoption of the appropriate behavior of covid (taxi), increasing the drive of vaccination and testing and search in the district,” he said, adding that the study was ongoing to determine the transmission and vaccine effect on mutations.
He said, “So far, with 52 cases, there has been no exponential growth in clusters or districts who have reported a new variant.
While guidelines on detention, search and care have been issued for these regions, protocols and other precautions will also help control Virus.
The occurrence and the third wave severity is in our hands.
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