Coronavirus Pandemic: Delhi CM urges Centre to share COVID-19 vaccine formula with other companies to scale up production

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday flagged the issue of COVID-19 vaccine and urged the Central government to share the vaccine formulas and allow more companies to scale up production.

"Only two companies are producing vaccines so far. They produce only 6-7 crore vaccines a month. This way, it will take over two years to vaccinate everyone. Many waves would have come by then. Important to increase vaccine production on war footing and frame national plan to vaccinate all," Kejriwal said at a press conference.

"The Centre has the power to make the vaccine formula public and distribute to those who are interested in making it. During the crisis in PPE kits last year, we allowed many companies to make the kits. Likewise, we should do the same in terms of vaccine manufacturing," he said further.

The Chief Minister highlighted that COVID-19 cases are witnessing a dip in Delhi, so is the second wave and asserted that the lockdown was successful.

"With your cooperation lockdown was successful, we have increased the number of oxygen beds in the past few days. Yesterday, we started 500 new ICU beds near GTB Hospital. Now, there is no shortage of ICU and Oxygen beds in Delhi," the Chief Minister informed.

He also said: "Right now, we are administering 1.25 lakh doses every day. We will soon begin vaccinating over three lakh people every day. We aim to vaccinate all residents of Delhi within the next three months. But we are facing a vaccine shortage. We are left with stock that will last only a few days."

The city with a dip recorded 12,651 fresh infections in the last 24 hours bringing down the positivity rate below 20 per cent on Monday.

(ANI)