No written request from SA govt to return Covishield doses: Poonawalla

Pune: Amidst media reports that the South African government has written to the Serum Institute of India (SII) to take back a million doses of the Covishield vaccine, given to the country a week ago, the company response to HT, stated that they are yet to receive any written response from the South African government regarding the same

Pune: Amidst media reports that the South African government has written to the Serum Institute of India (SII) to take back a million doses of the Covishield vaccine, given to the country a week ago, the company response to HT, stated that they are yet to receive any written response from the South African government regarding the same.

HT Image

Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer of SII, said, “We have not received anything in writing from the South African government and I do not want to comment on the matter. These are all just media reports as of now.”

He said that the current Covishield dose is effective against the new UK variant of the Sars-Cov-2 strain, as well as the South African strain of the Covid-19 causing virus.

Poonawalla said, “The vaccine is effective against severe disease so nobody has had to go to hospital after taking the vaccine. Patients have experienced only mild to moderate symptoms even in South Africa.”

The new variant of the virus found in South Africa has become a matter of concern as in January researchers found that the variant has mutations which may be resistant to immunity from a previous Covid-19 infection.

Following this, there were several media reports claiming that the South African government has requested the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), the only mass manufacturer of Oxford University’s Covishield vaccine in India, to take back its one million doses of Covishield which was delivered to the country about a week ago.

SII has been at the forefront to deliver the vaccine to multiple countries.

Dr Raman Gangakhedkar, epidemiologist and former head scientist of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research, said, “We have to do our independent validation study. I am told that the mutated virus is being cultured. Once the culture is done we need to study the effectiveness of the current vaccines. We need to do genomic sequencing on the same variant, of the rare South African Covid-19 strains found in our country, to see if there is any difference in the South African strain reported in India or the classical SA strain as there could be multiple mutations in the same kind.”

With respect to how effective these vaccines are against the ongoing mutations, Dr Gangakehkdar said both the vaccines are safe and only their efficacy is under study. He said, “Covaxin has provided data about its effectiveness against the UK strain. As about Covishield, there is data from other place, including the UK, that it does work against the UK variant. We need to try and develop a new mechanism to ensure that we are able to conduct our own study for any new mutation and develop vaccines accordingly and use it as second dose. As of now with respect to the general public, it is important to know that it is essential to get vaccinated as all the approved vaccines are safe and only their efficacy is being tested.”