2 years of Covid vaccination drive: More room for others in vaccine mix

Eye on new vaccines for precautionary doses as key players shift focus

A larger variety of vaccines are increasingly making a mark in India’s incremental vaccinations.

The share of other vaccines, such as Sputnik V, Corbevax and Covovax, has shown a rising trend, according to data from the latest week, which marks the second year since vaccinations began in January 2021. The entry of newer vaccines is likely to accentuate the trend.

Serum Institute of India’s Covishield accounted for 98.8 per cent of vaccines given out on the first day of vaccinations on January 16, 2021. While its share has fallen to 79.3 per cent, that of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is up from 1.2 per cent from the first day to 16.5 per cent this month. The share of others (Sputnik V, Corbevax, and Covovax), which had been nearly zero per cent even six months into the vaccine drive, has risen to over 4 per cent, the shows data from tracker Covid19bharat.org and the government’s CoWin portal.

India’s weekly vaccination rates have come down to less than a million per week, even as booster dose coverage remains lower than many countries.

So far, everyone who has taken the first dose of any vaccine was following it up with a second dose of the same jab. But, as people start taking their booster doses, it becomes a level playing field for the vaccine makers. There are three available choices for mix-and-match booster doses — Biological E’s Corbevax, Bharat Biotech’s iNCOVACC (nasal), and Serum Institute's Covovax (the Novavax vaccine).

Nasal vaccine, priced at Rs 800/dose, is scheduled to be launched in the fourth week of January. The government has not indicated any plans to procure it, but Bharat Biotech will sell it in the private market. Covovax, too, received a nod as a mix-and-match booster dose this week.

Changing demand and supply dynamics also had a role to play in the share of different vaccines.

The Serum Institute of India was making 250 million doses a month at the end of 2021 when they stopped production owing to low demand. They had stockpiled 250 million doses of formulations in vials, and around 250 million doses in the bulk form, which could be made into formulations.

Covishield formulation has a nine-month shelf life. So the December stock had an expiry of September-October 2022. However, the company continued to convert the bulk into formulation in 2022 depending on demand from both in India and overseas.

“We were producing 250 million doses a month at the end of 2021, and suddenly we had to stop because there was no demand even in the export markets. We decided to fill and finish the products that were already made into bulk form, or else they would have started expiring. From the month of August, we have got batches every month that will expire — about 20 million to 30 million doses will expire every month from now on,” Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer of SII, had told Business Standard in August.

Similarly, Bharat Biotech had a stockpile of 50 million doses in April when the company stopped production of the vaccine. It is estimated that the company had around 200 million Covaxin in the bulk form at that time. In 2021, Bharat Biotech had major issues in scaling up to meet demand or even catch up with Covishield supplies in the market. The inactivated virus platform technology takes longer time to make and the yield is low. A batch of Covaxin takes roughly three months to make.

Since September, the two major vaccine makers, including SII and Bharat Biotech, have seen hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines expire thanks to low demand. SII had seen almost 100 million doses expire.

 Both SII and Bharat Biotech had stopped producing Covishield and Covaxin long back due to lack of demand. They are now focusing on Covovax and nasal vaccines as heterologous booster doses.