India allows Covishield, Covaxin to be exported

The Union government has allowed commercial export of Covishield and Covaxin considering the sufficient stock of the COVID 19 vaccines available with states and Union Territories as well as with manufacturers, official sources said on Thursday.

The quantity of Covid vaccines to be exported will be decided by the government every month to ensure there is no shortage of domestic availability.

India has resumed Covid vaccine supply to the UN-backed COVAX, which allowed the Serum Institute of India SII to exort 50 Lakh doses of Covishield to Nepal, Tajikistan, Bangladesh and Mozambique.

The shipment of Covishield will reach Nepal and Tajikistan this week.

More than 22.72 crore balance and unutilized COVID 19 vaccine doses are still available with the states and Union Territories. There will be surplus supplies because of the increase in vaccine production.

An official source told PTI that a decision was taken to allow commercial export of Covishield and Covaxin.

Prakash Kumar Singh, SII's director, Government and Regulatory Affairs, has recently been informed by the Union Health Ministry that the Pune-based firm has 24,89, 15,000 doses of Covishield and the stock is increasing every day.

The quantity of vaccines to be exported will be decided on a monthly basis by the government to make sure domestic availability is not hampered in any way. Around 31 crore doses of Covishield and Covaxin are expected to be received by the government in December from SII and Bharat Biotech, while Zydus Cadila is likely to supply around two crore jabs of its three-dose Covid vaccine ZyCoV-D by that time.

The government recently allowed the export of 2 crore doses of COVID- 19 vaccine Covovax, produced in India by SII, to Indonesia. Official sources said the jab is yet to be approved for emergency use in the country.