Demand still strong for India-made AstraZeneca vaccine doses

Global vaccine-sharing network COVAX is still seeing strong demand for India-made doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 shot, its co-lead GAVI said, following comments from producer the Serum Institute of India (SII) that uptake had slowed sharply.

The SII, the world's biggest vaccine maker, told India's CNBC-TV18 this week it would temporarily halve the vaccine's production as it had no fresh orders from the Indian government and COVAX was taking fewer doses than the company could offer.

SII CEO Adar Poonawalla, whose company brands the shot Covishield, said COVAX was placing orders but "that's very slow and the uptake will pick up in the next quarter". Covishield production is currently at 250 million doses a month.

GAVI said COVAX had allocated 40 million Covishield doses to countries after New Delhi last month let the SII resume such supplies for the first time since April, and that it had the option to buy vaccines keeping a "flexible approach as the pandemic and countries' needs continue to evolve".

"We are still experiencing robust country demand for SII-Covishield ..." a GAVI spokesperson said in an email.

"Covishield will continue to play an important role within COVAX's diverse portfolio of vaccines ... to achieve higher coverage rates in lower-income countries."

Asked about the speed of vaccine orders and uptake, GAVI said the process takes time as doses need to be allocated to beneficiaries, plans put in place to administer them, approvals secured and shipment delivered.

"COVAX's goal is to protect populations as quickly as possible but every care must be taken to ensure recipient countries are able to deploy the doses we send them," GAVI said.

"And this is why it is so important that all manufacturers provide as much transparency as possible as to when and in what quantity volumes will be supplied."

The SII has a deal to supply up to 550 million Covishield doses to COVAX but has sent only about 37 million so far.