At least two private hospitals in Delhi’s east district have started administering Serum Institute of India's (SII) Covovax nearly a month after the government approved the use of the Covid-19 vaccine at private centres. So far, 88 doses of the vaccine have been administered in the capital. There are 160 combined slots available daily for Covovax in Makkar and Virmani hospitals, according to the government portal CoWIN at Rs 386 per dose (including charges of the hospital and GST). The government approved the use of Covovax in early May at private vaccination centres, adding that it was not going to purchase the vaccine for its free vaccination drive. Covovax is the second Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by the SII along with the most commonly used Covishield. It uses bits of the spike protein of Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 to induce immunity. At present, the Covid-19 vaccination drive in Delhi is using five vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin, which were the first to be approved and most commonly used for adult vaccination; Sputnik V, that is also available only at private centres, Corbevax, being used for children between the ages of 12 and 14 years under the government’s programme, and now Covovax. So far, 8.8 lakh doses of Corbevax have been administered in the capital, almost 94,000 shots of Sputnik V, 85 lakh doses of Covaxin, and 2.46 crore doses of Covishield as per data from CoWIN. The government is yet to decide on whether to go ahead with a mix-and-match of vaccines for booster doses. As of now, homologous precaution doses are used, meaning the same vaccine that was used for the first two doses is administered as the third or precaution dose.
