India will take the top priority for the delivery of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine after its British developers claimed success after massive testing, the world’s largest vaccine maker by volume said Monday.
Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla said the manufacturer has already produced 40 million doses of the vaccine so far.
“By January, we should have, you know, 100 million doses is the minimum because we’ve already made 40 million doses,” Poonawalla, whose father founded the vaccine maker, told television station NDTV.
Poonawalla said he expected about 90 percent of the Serum Institute’s doses to be sold to the Indian government for about 250 rupees (US $ 3.00).
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“Most of that 90 percent is what will go to the government of India and perhaps 10 percent to the private market at the highest price (of Rs 1,000),” he said.
“We hope to get this emergency use license so that by the end of December, January, we can start rolling out some (doses).”
AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford said Monday that their drug had shown an average 70 percent effectiveness in stopping the virus after testing it on 23,000 people.
The Oxford drug can easily be transported at normal refrigerator temperatures, unlike some of the other candidates, which require extremely cold storage.
AstraZeneca said it plans to produce up to three billion doses of the vaccine in 2021 if it overcomes the remaining regulatory hurdles.
In August, the Serum Institute struck a deal with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to produce up to 100 million doses of COVID-19 from two different potential vaccines from AstraZeneca and the American biotech company Novavax.
Once the vaccines gain regulatory approval, doses could be produced as early as the first half of 2021 for distribution to low- and middle-income countries, Gavi said.
India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told India Today TV early Monday that he expected 250 to 300 million Indians to be immunized by September next year.
The first in line would be health workers, other front-line workers, including police, paramilitaries and those who work in sanitation, as well as people over 65, Vardhan added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet with state leaders on Tuesday to discuss the distribution of the vaccine, local media reported.
India is the second most infected country after the United States with more than 9.1 million virus cases.
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