New Delhi: Serum Institute of India (SII) is in talks with Danish firm Bavarian Nordic to import some consignments of vaccines to combat monkeypox cases in the country. SII Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla said this on Tuesday.
Poonawalla said in an interview with a channel that in the event of an agreement, it would take two to three months to import the vaccines into the country. He said that since only a few cases of monkeypox have been reported in the country so far, SII will have to wait for some time to assess the demand situation and development of the vaccine at the local level.
There have been four cases of monkeypox in India so far. Three of these cases have come from Kerala. When asked about when SII can import the monkeypox vaccine, Poonawalla said, “I am ready to do so immediately for the security of my nation. As soon as we have some kind of commercial agreement to import it and depending on availability from Bavarian Nordic, we can expect to do that.”
The Danish company Bavarian Nordic has already developed a vaccine against monkeypox and it is available in various markets under the brand names Genios, Imvamune, and Imvanex. Poonawalla said, “My team is talking to him right now. For large quantities of vaccines, we decide based on the exact demand and requirement.”
He said SII was initially ready to import some consignments of the vaccine at its own cost, but the government would have to decide what to do for larger quantities. Poonawalla said, “There have been only a few cases and so there is no need to rush to order lakhs of doses and do all that..we need to watch closely in the next few months…very good with the government in the past as well cooperated and we still need that close coordination.”
Poonawalla said that even if we start the process of manufacturing the vaccine locally, it will probably take a year for the product to hit the market. He said there is no need to panic over the detection of some cases, as the disease has been around for decades. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared monkeypox a ‘global public health emergency, citing cause for concern.
