MUMBAI: Not only healthcare workers and the ‘prioritized’ vulnerable population, but individuals also have reason to rejoice with the government’s approval of the Covid-19 vaccine from the Serum Institute of India, based in Pune. Once it launches the 50-60 million doses of Covishield that make up the first tranche of the government order, it will deliver doses to individuals, private hospitals and businesses starting in March, Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla said Sunday. .
This comes after the Comptroller General of Drugs of India (DCGI) approved the Serum vaccine for “restricted use in an emergency situation, subject to conditions”. Initially, the company will supply exclusively to the government and will not sell to the private market. Nor has the vaccine been allowed to be exported. In a bid to endorse the vaccine and build trust, Poonawalla said he plans to vaccinate himself this week, after formal approval comes in.
Significantly, the “special” price of around Rs 200 per injection to the government will be only for the first 100 million doses, Poonawalla said. It will be priced at around Rs 1,000 per dose on the private market. “We expect to start deliveries in seven to 10 days after the order. The government indicated that they would need 50-60 million doses in a month, or 10-15 million doses a week,” he added.
The formal letter from the government, including the final order, is still awaited. So once the government’s initial requirements of providing the vaccine to the “vulnerable and needy” are met, “we will provide it for private use to hospitals and businesses,” he said. “We will recommend a longer interval (of two and a half months) between the two full injection doses, as this increases the efficacy to the 90% level,” Poonawalla said, adding that efficacy improves if you wait nearly three months. Data from Indian clinical trials proving this will be made public over the next two months.
“Our leaflet also recommends an interval of one to three months. The longer you wait, the better efficacy you will get. This is based on global studies on more than 25,000 people with the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine. This recommendation will come from the UK soon, will present it to the regulator “he added. The overall vaccine efficacy of the Serum vaccine was 70.42%, DCGI said in a news release.
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