Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) pharmaceutical company on Saturday (Nov 28), the company’s chief executive, Adar Poonawalla, said his company will apply for permission for the authorization of emergency use of ‘Covishield’ in the next two weeks.
Covishield is the coronavirus vaccine developed jointly by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca in collaboration with IBS.
Within days, SII CEO Poonawalla had said that the company is focused on supplying vaccines to India first. “It is very important that we take care of our country first, then we go to Covax and then other bilateral agreements with countries. So I have kept it at that priority,” Poonawalla told reporters.
“I am delighted to hear that Covishield, a low-cost, logistically manageable vaccine that will soon be widely available, the # COVID19 vaccine will offer protection up to 90% in one type of dosage regimen and 62% in the other regimen. dosage. More details on this will be provided tonight, “Adar Poonawalla tweeted on November 23.
“As of now, we have nothing in writing with the government of India on how many doses they will buy, but the indication is that it would be 300 to 400 million doses by July 2021,” he added.
Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Modi visited the SII facilities in Pune and met with Poonawalla and his team. “He had a good interaction with the Serum Institute of India team. They shared details on their progress so far on how they plan to further increase vaccine manufacturing. They also took a look at their manufacturing facilities,” PM Modi tweeted.
I had a good interaction with the team at the Serum Institute of India. They shared details about their progress so far on how they plan to increase vaccine manufacturing further. He also took a look at their manufacturing facilities. pic.twitter.com/PvL22uq0nl
– Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 28, 2020
PM Modi also went to Hyderabad to visit the Bharat Biotech facilities. During his visit to the Bharat Biotech facility, the Prime Minister received information about the company’s ‘indigenous COVID-19 vaccine’. “He congratulated the scientists on their progress in the trials so far. His team is working closely with ICMR to facilitate rapid progress,” said PM Modi.
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Before going to Hyderabad, Prime Minister Modi visited the Zydus biotech park in Ahmedabad “to learn more about the indigenous DNA-based vaccine being developed by Zydus Cadila.” In a tweet, he said: “I congratulate the team behind this effort for their work. The Government of India is actively working with them to support them on this journey.”
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