Covishield

Non-availability of vaccines is forcing the KMC health department to keep its 102 covishield clinics and 50 covishield mega centres shut indefinitely.

A shortage of covishield doses, coupled with the weekend lockdown and vaccination holidays at some sites, caused the district’s daily inoculation to drop to a four-day low on Saturday.

There is no risk of thrombosis or blood clotting due to use of covishield, Niti Aayog member-health Dr V K Paul said on Wednesday and urged people to get vaccinated without any fear. This comes in the wake of concerns about possible adverse events in people vaccinated with covishield, a vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

After administering over 200 covishield doses (on an average) from each of its 102 Covid Vaccination Clinics (CVC) for the past two weeks, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation on Thursday decided to shut these centres on Friday owing to non-availability of stocks. This apart, there will be no covishield shots from the KMC-run 50 mega vaccination centres, said a senior official of the civic body’s health department.

Vaccination centres across the Pune Metropolitan Region have now been given fresh stock of covishield, just days after reports emerged of widespread shortage of the shot.

A month after the health department raised a request for 2 lakh covishield doses, the city received 4,000 of them on Thursday

Inconsistent supply of covishield to civic sites in the district has sparked concern among those relying on free Covid vaccination.

The increase in the interval between two covishield doses to 12-16 weeks is likely to work to the advantage of beneficiaries aged 45 years and above currently scrambling to get their first shots, state public health authorities told TOI on Friday.

Four districts of Malwa-Nimar exhausted their stock of covishield vaccine on Monday amidst ongoing drive for precaution dose, show records.Of these, three districts are in Indore division and one in Ujjain division.

The regional vaccine store is also without any stock of covishield vaccine, show records. Regional director health services Dr Ashok Dagaria said, “The districts will get new stock by Tuesday to run their mass vaccination drive.”

India is facing a shortage of covishield and Covaxin as most of the vaccination centres in the country claimed that they had run out of their stock.

Vaccine stocks are fast depleting in the city, leaving the Pune municipal authorities with just enough covishield doses to last till Saturday afternoon. There are currently minimal doses left at PMC’s Narayan Peth vaccine store.

The Ministry said that protection is enhanced if the second dose of covishield is administered between 6-8 weeks, but not later than stipulated period of 8 weeks keeping the existing scientific evidence in view.

The civic body expects to receive fresh stock of covishield to reopen its 102 vaccination clinics and 50 mega centres on Monday. These clinics and mega centres have been shut since Friday due to an acute shortage of covishield. Only a handful centres where Covaxin is administered are currently functioning.

Maharashtra's current covishield reserves are likely to be exhausted by the end of this week, state officials said on Monday. Dr Sachin Desai, state immunisation officer, said Maharashtra currently holds around 10 lakh doses of covishield. With average daily vaccination at around two lakh for the last two weeks - due to the increase in booster jabs - this reserve is not expected to last beyond this week, he said.

The civic body’s covishield clinics and mega centres, which were shut for three days, will reopen from Monday. The decision was taken on Sunday after the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) received 30,000 covishield doses during the day.

Vaccination of people in the 18 to 44 age group in places other than Bhubaneswar continues to be uncertain as there is still no clarity on the supply of covishield. Director, family welfare, Bijay Kumar Panigrahi said the Serum Institute of India has indicated that some vaccine may come in the third week. However, the state would get a consignment of only around 2.20 lakh doses of covishield with no clarity on subsequent supply.

There is a shortage of vaccine doses in Vadodara, so people are having to ask for the vaccine at the health facilities or go to the free vaccination centers. The municipal corporation, VMC, is expecting to have more covishield vaccine but this has not happened yet. The vaccine is only available at limited numbers of private hospitals. There is a coverage issue with the booster dose, as many people have not taken it. The VMC medical officer, Dr. Devesh Patel, said that the vaccine should be available next week.

Karnataka has received three lakh additional covishield doses from the Centre, for the 45 plus age group, health minister K Sudhakar said on Tuesday.

Blood clots or thromboembolic events after vaccination with covishield were reported in just 0.61 cases per million doses in India, while no such events were found following Covaxin jabs, the Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) committee said in its report, underlining that risk seemed higher in people of European descent.

covishield accounted for 91% of the total 52 lakh doses administered in the Pune district till July 11.

Ahead of the vaccination drive against coronavirus, a total of 456 boxes of the covishield vaccine have started the process of leaving the Pune airport via the air cargo facilities of different airlines since Tuesday morning. The first consignment of covishield vaccine has reached Delhi at around 10:30am.

After spending the entire day amid uncertainty over supply of covishield doses and the possibility of shutting down 102 Covid vaccination clinics and 50 mega centres from where the doses are administered, officials at Kolkata Municipal Corporation were relieved on Tuesday evening when the state health department informed them that two consignments of covishield were flown into the state.

India's apex body on immunisation NTAGI has recommended administering the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine covishield between eight and 16 weeks after the first dose. Presently, the second dose of covishield is given between 12-16 weeks after the first dose. The government had on May 13, 2021 extended the gap between the first and second doses of the covishield vaccine from 6-8 weeks to 12-16 weeks based on the recommendations by NTAGI.

Owner and CEO of covishield-maker Serum Institute of India (SII), Adar Poonawalla, on Saturday dismissed the need for a 'marketing authorisation application' to the European Union (EU), saying 16 of the 27 member countries and Switzerland (not part of the EU) have currently approved the vaccine based on the WHO's pre-qualification or Emergency Use Listing (EUL).

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Wednesday said that the European approval for its locally manufactured covishield vaccine is "just a matter of time" and is expected in about a month. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is yet to clear the inclusion of covishield in the European Union (EU) Covid vaccination passport.

covishield manufactured in India is similar in terms of safety and immunogenicity to its UK version manufactured by AstraZeneca. This has been established by the phase 2/3 bridging study results on the prestigious journal the Lancet preprint. The pan-India study had 17 centres in the country, which enrolled 1,600 participants. The study also found that the reactogenicity — reaction following the vaccine — decreased in the elderly while the immune response was same across age groups.

The civic body’s covishield vaccination clinics and mega centres are now left with stock to last just another day. Accordingly, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) health department on Wednesday decided to keep its 102 covishield clinics and 50 mega centres open on Thursday.

Booster drives with the covishield vaccine have resumed in the state after fresh stock, of nearly 3.5 lakh doses, arrived this week.