India to import vaccines to speed up vaccination of entire population

Govt. of India, through NEGVAC, is doing regular interaction with national and international vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Moderna etc. to make the COVID-19 vaccines available in-country.

The government of India has been supporting the efforts of States and UTs for effective management of COVID patients in vaccination, under the ‘Whole of Government” approach since January this year. COVID being a Pandemic with worldwide impact, there has been a global high demand for vaccines with a limited number of manufacturers with limited manufacturing capacity across countries. India with a population of 1.4 billion houses a substantial share of the World Population, estimated to be 7.7 billion by the World Bank. In India, two vaccines were approved by the regulatory body in January 2021. The two manufacturers:  Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech had a capacity to provide around 1 crore doses in the month of December 2020.