Major reason India suspended further delivery of COVID 19 vaccines

The organisation behind COVAX facility, Serum Institute of India, has said that it may not resume the export of COVID-19 vaccine doses till the end of 2021.

Recall that the Director of African Centre for Disease Control, Dr John Nkengasong, had last week during the weekly press briefing on COVID-19 response in Africa, said Africa was expecting more vaccine supply from the COVAX facility which is a United Nations-led facility facilitating the procurement of vaccines for African countries.

Earlier this year, the COVAX facility had announced the donation of 16 million doses to Nigeria out of which 3.9 million had been distributed for the first phase of vaccination.

The AstraZeneca vaccine doses being distributed in Nigeria were sourced from the SII.

The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib, had also during the press briefing of the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 in April, said the country might receive some vaccine doses through COVAX by the end of May or June.

However, a statement from SII signed by the Chief Executive Officer, Adar Ponawalla, on Wednesday said the institute would focus more on boosting the vaccine drive for India as the country battles a major spike in its infection rate.

According to SII, the decision to support other countries was taken at a time when the daily cases recorded in India were low.