Govt approves Covaxin manufacturing facility in Gujarat’s Ankleshwar

Union minister of health and family welfare Mansukh Mandaviya took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce the government’s approval of BharatBiotech's Covaxin manufacturing facility in Gujarat’s Ankleshwar.“Govt of India approves vaccine manufacturing facility for production of BharatBiotech's Covaxin in Ankleshwar, Gujarat,” the minister tweeted.

“Following PM NarendraModi ji's vision of SabkoVaccineMuftVaccine, this will increase vaccine availability & accelerate the world’s largest vaccine drive,” he added.

Mandaviya had informed the Rajya Sabha on August 6 that the facility augmentation of Bharat Biotech and three public sector enterprises (PSEs) – Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, Indian Immunologicals Ltd (IIL) and Bharat Immunologicals Biologicals Corporation Ltd - was being supported to enhance production of Covaxin. Before that NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul told reporters on August 3 that IIL has started an additional facility at Ankleshwar in Gujarat where 60 lakh doses of the vaccine will be manufactured.

Bharat Biotech had said in a press statement that IIL’s Ankleshwar-based production facility will add another 200 million doses to its overall vaccine production. The Ankleshwar based manufacturing facility is expected to roll out vaccine doses from the fourth quarter of the year, PTI had reported on May 20. “The current production capacity is 25 million doses per month and this is likely to be maintained till August-September this year, after which more supplies will happen. In the next two months we will be starting production in two of our facilities in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, and Bengaluru, Karnataka. These facilities are being repurposed and the production is likely to start in next two months,” an executive from the company told Hindustan Times.