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The Union government has placed a purchase order with the Serum Institute of India (SII) for 66 crore doses of Covishield to be supplied by December, official sources said .
The development comes after Prakash Kumar Singh, the Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs at SII, informed the Union health ministry that the firm would be able to supply 20.29 crore doses of Covishied in the month of September.
The Pune-based firm has enhanced the manufacturing capacity of Covishield to more than 20 crore doses per month.
The health ministry had in July placed an order with Bharat Biotech for the supply of 28.50 crore doses of Covaxin, but the firm has not been able to start the supply of those yet, an official source said.
Bharat Biotech is close to completing the supply of five crore doses of Covaxin for which the health ministry had placed an order on March 12, the source said.
The source added that the ministry had placed an order for 37.50 crore doses of Covishield between August to December and the SII is going to complete this supply by mid-September.
