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‘300 million doses by July’: SII chief Adar Poonawalla on Covishield
Hinting at approval from British and Indian governments to approve shots for emergency use, Poonawalla said, “You will be hearing some good news from the UK very soon.”
Serum Institute of India’s chief executive Adar Poonawalla said on Monday the rollout of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is expected in January next year and that they have 40-50 million doses of shot.
“You will be hearing some good news from the UK very soon... By January, we should have the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine licensed,” Poonawalla said. “Once we get regulatory approvals in a few days, it’ll be down to the government to decide how much they can take and how fast,” Poonawalla said.
Pune-based SII, which is manufacturing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in India, has already made 40 to 50 million doses of the shot, Poonawalla said. “We have 40-50 million doses of Covishield stockpiled. We will be producing around 300 million doses by July 2021,” he said.
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He added that in the initial stage, in one or two months, the offtake will be slow. “Once the logistics and everything work out well we can expect the rollout for Covishield in January,” the SII head said during a media interaction, according to ANI.
Poonawalla also talked about concerns surrounding the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine. “Regulators are evaluating the data...A lot of people keep raising issues. There are no concerns at all. 92 to 95 per cent vaccine efficiency is there,” he said.
India’s Covid-19 caseload rose to 1,02,07,871 with 20,021 infections being reported in the last 24 hours and recoveries surged to 9.78 million, according to the Union health ministry on Monday. The death toll of the world’s second-worst hit country increased to 147,901 with 279 new fatalities, data showed.
India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 2 million mark on August 7, 3 million on August 23, 4 million on September 5 and 5 million on September 16. It went past 6 million on September 28, 7 million on October 11, 8 million on October 29, 9 million on November 20 and crossed the 10 million mark on December 19.
