Bringing a ray of hope to a population devastated by the novel coronavirus, Pune-based Serum Institute of India CEO and owner Adar Poonawalla announced at the HT Leadership Summit 2020 on Thursday that India may well look forward to a vaccine. suitable and effective for contagious viral disease. by the end of the year or the beginning of the next. Emphasizing that initial doses of the vaccine would be assigned to all front-line workers, health officials and the elderly who are most vulnerable, Poonawalla said that if deadlines are not delayed by unexpected circumstances, ordinary people could be vaccinated sooner. of March. April 2021.
“I never dreamed that we at the Serum Institute of India (SII) would have a good vaccine developed by the end of the year with all the regulatory approvals in place. If all goes according to plan, January-February 2021 is our deadline for the vaccine to be available to front-line workers and the general public in March, April next year, ”said the SII executive director.
Promising to allocate at least 50% of the volume of the vaccine manufactured by his company to his own compatriots to help them fight the Covid-19 infection, Poonawalla indicated that the IBS had plans to launch 100 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. before February 2021. He also said that efforts were being made to make the vaccine affordable for everyone at a starting price of between Rs 500-600. He assured that there would be no major side effects, but that a mild fever could occur that could be treated with paracetamol. .
READ ALSO | HTLS 2020: ‘Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Will Be Priced at Rs 500-600,’ Says Adar Poonawalla
He also talked about adding two more manufacturing facilities to its current production capacity to allow the company to roll out 100 million doses of the vaccine by February 2021.
Poonawalla participated in the 18th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in conversation with HT Health Editor Sanchita Sharma. The opening session also saw Dr. Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS and Dr. Ashish K Jha, Dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, discussing the Covid-19 health crisis and how it had affected the entire world. . Dr. Guleria also warned the public to be more cautious now than ever, as a suitable vaccine for the viral disease was just around the corner.
Adar Poonawalla is the CEO and owner of the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), which is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold globally (more than 1.5 billion doses). IBS supplies affordable, life-saving vaccines approved by the World Health Organization to at least 170 countries around the world. The family business was founded in 1966 by Cyrus Poonawalla with the goal of manufacturing life-saving immunobiological drugs, including vaccines.
READ ALSO | HTLS Day 1 LIVE: Oxford vaccine to launch in next 3-4 months, says Adar
Amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic, which has faced nearly 200 countries with the largest public health crisis the world has seen in a century, this year’s Hindustan Times Leadership Summit (HTLS) it is a totally virtual event. affair and a fusion of world leaders from all walks of life. Live discussions with famous contestants will run over four weeks scheduled twice a week on Thursdays and Fridays.
The theme of this year’s edition, which takes place virtually, is ‘Defining a new era’ as the world learns to live and cope with the coronavirus infection and takes small steps to control the pandemic.
The Hindustan Times Leadership Summit began nearly a decade and a half earlier in 2003, to raise the bar on critical issues and encourage interaction between leaders in important areas and present quality thinking through a series of conversations. The past seventeen summits have seen leaders across the country and around the world express their views to build a better India in an emerging post-modern world.
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