Covid-19: Indian vaccine makers bank on boosters as demand crashes
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New Delhi: Indian Covid-19 vaccine makers are lobbying the government to authorise boosters as supplies have so outstripped demand that one drugmaker told Reuters it had suspended a plan to produce more than 100 million doses of Russia's Sputnik shot.
The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, and Sputnik's India distributor, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, have both said they have approached health authorities about boosters.
India has said its priority is to fully vaccinate all 944 million adults, though its immunisation experts are studying the need for boosters. India has given two doses to more than half of its adults and at least one dose to 86% of them.
Nearly 90% of the 1.3 billion total doses administered in India have been the Covishield vaccine, a licensed version of the AstraZeneca shot produced by SII.
The government wants a total of 1.7 billion vaccine doses to fully immunise most of its adults, and the SII plans to make the last of its pending orders to meet its share of that demand by next week.
Read also: AstraZeneca COVID antibody cocktail authorized by USFDA
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