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‘A good vaccine is...’: Adar Poonawalla’s cryptic tweet has many targets
Nobody wants a vaccine that will come with a guarantee of only a few months, Poonawalla had earlier said.
Moderna and Pfizer’s announcement of the safety percentage of their vaccine candidates has intensified the vaccine battle. Serum Institute of India’s CEo Adar Poonawalla on Tuesday took to Twitter and reminded that a good vaccine may not be the one that comes first. A good vaccine has four attributes, Poonawalla tweeted. It has to be safe, it should offer long-term protection against the targetted disease, it should be transported and stored at a manageable temperature. And lastly, it should be affordable to all of humanity, Poonawalla wrote.
Latest to the ongoing vaccine developments, Pfizer and BioNTech SE last week said their vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19. Moderna on Monday said its vaccine candidate against Covid-19, found it to have an efficacy of 94.5 per cent. The vaccines are at present waiting for the approval of the regulatory body. However, medical experts are not sure whether Pfizer vaccine would be helpful to poorer nations as the vaccine shot needs minus 70 degrees Celsius temperature. In normal medical refrigerator temperature, Pfizer vaccine can be stored for five days.
Major hospitals in the United States have said they don’t have the storage facility as required for Pfizer vaccine. Without taking any name, Poonawalla indicated that a good vaccine can’t be so difficult to store. Earlier, the CEO of the world’s largest vaccine producer — by the volume — had said to the Washington Post that vaccines that require ultra-cold storage are ‘joke’. “Nobody wants a vaccine that is only going to protect you for a few months,” he had said.
Serum Institute had earlier said that their vaccine will be priced at Rs 224 per dose.
