COVID-19 vaccine: India to get largest share of 97.1 mn doses from Covax Facility

India will get the largest share of coronavirus vaccines to be distributed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) co-led Covax Facility in the first two quarters this year. In the first interim vaccine distribution forecast, Covax Alliance said it would distribute 240 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, licensed to Serum Institute, 96 million doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine under the advance purchase agreement between Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and AstraZeneca, and 1.2 million doses of Pfizer vaccine in the first two quarters of 2021.

Of this, India will get the maximum share of 97,164,000 doses (97.1 million), in addition to the direct orders placed by the Indian government with SII and Bharat Biotech. Pakistan would get 17.2 million doses, Nigeria 16 million, Indonesia 13.7 million, Bangladesh 12.8 million and Brazil 10.6 million, besides most other developing nations in various continents according to their population and pandemic spread.

The Covax facility was formed by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the WHO, alongside key delivery partner UNICEF, for equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines.  The Facility had received 72 submissions (36 Advance Market Commitment participants and 36 self-financing participants) as of January 18. The alliance plans as many as 1.8 billion doses to be available to the 92 economies of the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) in 2021, corresponding to 27 per cent coverage of the populations in those countries.

 Covax expects to get about 2.780 billion doses in 2021 and 2022, of which 550 million doses are expected to be of Covishield and Novovax vaccines each, made by SII. Moderna's 170 million doses and 40 million doses from Pfizer-BioNtech are also among the signed deals.

Serum has indicated that it would give 35-40 per cent of the 240 million doses in Q1 and 60-65 per cent in Q2.

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