After Bharat Biotech announced that it is slowing down Covid-19 vaccines production, its Pune-based vaccine competitor Serum Institute of India (SII)  too followed suit. The SII said that it had sufficient stocks to take care of both domestic and export demand and hence the current production is almost at a slow pace.

Both the vaccine manufacturers combined have accounted for over 98 per cent of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country. So far, 1.51 billion Covishield doses and 300 million Covaxin doses have been administered in India, which makes it 98.36 per cent of the 1.84 billion doses administered in the country.

However, as most of the States have withdrawn restriction on movement of people and not making the vaccination mandatory for venturing out in the public places, both companies have halted production of jabs at their facilities. Sources said that there were no fresh orders from the Government, and their supply commitments have ended as of March 31. SII has accumulated about 250 million doses of Covishield stocks at its Pune facility, while Bharat Biotech said it had completed all its supply commitments.

SII had indicated in December that it was halving the production of Covishield as it had a 500 million doses inventory at its facility. Half of these were finished doses, while the remaining was bulk doses that were not converted to formulation.

Bharat Biotech, had on Saturday said that it will temporarily slow down its Covid vaccine Covaxin's production across its manufacturing facilities.

"Bharat Biotech today announces the temporary slowing down of production of Covaxin across its manufacturing facilities, having completed its supply obligations to procurement agencies and foreseeing the decrease in demand," it said in a statement.