The Serum Institute of India will apply for emergency clearance for the COVID-19 vaccine in the next two weeks, Executive Director Adar Poonawalla said on Saturday. The Pune-based pharmaceutical company has partnered with global pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to produce the COVID-19 vaccine for the University of Oxford for low- and middle-income countries. Nicknamed Covishield, the COVID-19 vaccine is currently in phase III clinical trial in India.
Covishield is a very effective vaccine against the new coronavirus, Poonawalla said. AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford previously said that their drug had shown an average 70% effectiveness in stopping the virus after testing it on 23,000 people. “In addition, there were zero hospitalizations during the trial and a 60% reduction in sterilizing immunity,” added the CEO.
India will have the first priority for the delivery of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume said. “The COVID-19 vaccine will be initially distributed in India, then we will look at COVAX countries that are mainly in Africa. Our priority is the countries of India and COVAX,” Poonawalla added.
“The UK and European markets are being served by AstraZeneca and Oxford,” he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Serum Institute of India’s manufacturing facility in Pune on Saturday to personally review the vaccine’s development. “They had a good interaction with the Serum Institute of India team. They shared details about their progress so far on how they plan to further increase vaccine manufacturing. I also took a look at their manufacturing facilities,” Modi said on Twitter.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi now has great knowledge about vaccines and vaccine production. We were surprised by what he already knew. There was very little to explain to him except to go into detail about different variable vaccines and the challenges they may face in the future, “Poonawalla added.
“We have built the largest pandemic level facility in Pune and our new campus in Mandri. That was also shown to the PM with a tour of the facilities and many detailed discussions,” he added.
Poonawalla said the manufacturer has already produced between 40 and 50 million doses of the vaccine per month. “We are planning to roll it out up to 100 million doses of the vaccine per month by January, February,” Poonawalla said.
On the vaccine agreements with the central government, the executive director of SII said: “As of now, we have nothing in writing with the government of India about how many doses they will buy, but the indication is that it would be 300-400 million dose for July 2021 “
The Oxford drug can be easily transported at normal refrigerator temperatures, unlike some of the other candidates, which require extremely cold storage, he added.
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