50% of COVID vaccines by Serum Institute will be only for Indians!
Galatta | Jul 22, 2020, 03:36 pm
The COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus Pandemic has brought almost all the countries of the world to their knees, with no ways to answer the Virus! However, scientists & researchers have been racing against time to identify a vaccine or a cure for the corona virus. Though quite a few vaccines have moved into the human trial stage, it was only a couple of days back that the data of human trials of a COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Oxford University, was published! Serum Institute in India, is one of the biggest vaccine manufacturers in the world and the company is in line to become one of the manufacturers of this vaccine developed by Oxford University! Now, the company's CEO has given out some great news for Indians, through his latest statement!
Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of Serum Institute, has revealed that 50% of the COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by his company would be supplied to India and only the remaining 50% would be shipped to foreign countries! In a further pleasant surprise, Poonawalla stated that Indians would not have to spend money and purchase the vaccines as the governments themselves would purchasing them and distributing among the public free of cost, through immunisation programmes! In an exclusive interview to a famous media house, Adar Poonawalla has mentioned that if the human trials are completed successfully and the results are as expected, Serum Institute would be partnering with Oxford University to manufacture the vaccine!
The CEO further revealed that Serum Institute is seeking regulatory approvals to conducting the Phase 3 human trials of this vaccine developed by the Oxford University, in India, as with favourable results this could lead to mass manufacturing! Considering the global scale of the Pandemic, the company wants to split the overall output of the vaccines production to India & the rest of the world, equally! Talking about the production capability, Poonawalla mentioned that if the green signal for mass production is obtained, Serum Institute would be able to produce a few million doses of the vaccine by as early as November-December and amp up the production to 300-400 million doses by the first quarter of 2021! The government would decide as to who gets the first batch of the vaccines with the most ethical way being to distribute it among the elderly and children, specifically those who are immuno compromised, apart from the frontline healthcare workers with the healthy adults getting it at a later stage. It is also being reported that the actual cost of each dose of the vaccine is difficult to estimate as of now.