Covishield Demand Goes Down By Covax

The demand for Serum Institute of India's Covishield has gone down significantly from countries served by the Covax programme, according to a document on the World Health Organization-supported global Covid vaccine facility.

These countries prefer mRNA vaccines over the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Covishield, the only vaccine made in India, is available at the Covax facility.

"Covaxin (also made in India) was never in the Covax facility and demand for Covishield has gone down," Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the WHO, confirmed to ET.

Swaminathan stated that there are many mRNA vaccinations that countries prefer. They also prefer single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Swaminathan stated that one reason for the decline in demand was because "countries were disappointed because supplies of Covishield expected to be available in 2021 never materialised." At the start of the second pandemic, India had stopped exports of Covid vaccinations. At the beginning of the second wave of pandemics last year, India's Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya declared that shipments to the Covax programme would be resumed. The Covax document, which is WHO's global vaccine supply initiative, shows that countries have chosen to use vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

This shows that the initial demand Covishield is decreasing. The initial demand for Covishield in the allocation round R 15 was 5.4million. This round was the first to be allocated for quarter 2 of 2022. The effective demand has decreased to 0.4million.

After the demand planning exercise, several countries opted out of Covishield and AstraZeneca. It states that the initial demand was met with J&J, Moderna, and Pfizer doses.

This document shows that J&J's Janssen vaccine effective demand has increased from 56.2 million to 73.6 million. Both Modernah and Pfizer have an effective demand.