India to get 5 more COVID-19 vaccines including Johnson & Johnson, Sputnik V by October

India is expected to get five additional vaccine manufacturers apart from current manufactures Covishield and Covaxin by the end of the third quarter of 2021.

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New Delhi: The Centre is gearing to scale up the COVID-19 vaccine production as more and more states flag COVID-19 vaccine doses shortage. It is expected that by the end of the third quarter of 2021, India will get five additional vaccine manufacturers apart from current manufactures Covishield and Covaxin.

Around 20 COVID-19 vaccines are in various clinical and pre-clinical stages and will add a boost to India's vaccine production.

As per top government sources, the new strategy is to manufacture additional vaccine doses.

"These vaccines are Sputnik V vaccine (in collaboration with Dr. Reddy`s), Johnson & Johnson vaccine (in collaboration with Biological E), Novavax vaccine (in collaboration with Serum India), Zydus Cadila`s vaccine, and Bharat Biotech`s Intranasal Vaccine," a source was quoted as saying by ANI.

Sputnik V vaccine is expected to get the Emergency Use Approval within the next ten days. 

A decision has been taken at the highest level to ensure all steps are taken to help domestic manufacturers to scale up vaccine production amid a second wave of COVID-19 pandemic with the number of new cases increasing each day. 

Meanwhile, India on Sunday added 1,52,879 new COVID-19 cases taking the active count to over 11 lakh. The country also witnessed 90,584 recoveries and 839 deaths in the last 24 hours. 

India's active count now stands at 11,08,087. The country's total coronavirus caseload has now increased to 1.33 crore, of which, 1.2 crore have recovered, whereas, 1.69 lakh have died of the virus, as per the official data released by the Union Health Ministry. 

Notably, the number of COVID-19 vaccine jabs administered in the country has crossed 10 crore, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said. India achieved the milestone in a record 85 days as compared to 89 days by US and 102 days by China.