New Delhi: The Corona vaccine maker Serum Institute of India (SII) is finding it difficult to procure raw materials due to the implementation of the US government’s Defense Production Act. The Serum Institute has requested the Central Government to intervene in the matter. Prakash Kumar Singh, director of government and regulatory affairs at SII, has written to Commerce Secretary Anoop Wadhawan and Foreign Secretary Harshvardhan Shringla.
Covishield vaccine is being used worldwide
He said in the letter that the SII-produced Covishield vaccine is being widely used in India and around the world and has been vaccinated to millions of people. Singh said that the Serum Institute is working on various other Covid-19 vaccine projects in technical collaboration with various institutes like Novavax (US), Kodagenics (US), etc., for which it is providing many essential products like raw materials, ingredients. Relying on imports from various foreign manufacturers, especially the US.
A new act of American government
He said in the letter, ‘Through the Defense Production Act, the US government has established two priority systems, the Defense Priorities and Allocation System Program (DPAS) and the Health Resource-Priority and Allocation System (HRPAS). There are two major components (priorities and allocation) of HRPAS. Under the priority component, some contracts between government and private entities or between private parties will be given priority over other contracts for the production or distribution of industrial resources required for vaccine production. ‘
Problems may occur due to the non-availability of raw materials
Singh said that this means that if orders from American manufacturers are given priority under the above system, then they will get preference over orders from manufacturers from other countries. Singh wrote in a letter on 6 March that the entire world relied on the creation of a large-scale Covid-19 vaccine at an uninterrupted pace to end the epidemic. But if we do not get a timely supply of these essential products from the US then this is going to be a serious limiting factor, which will result in an acute shortage of Covid-19 vaccines as they are manufactured depending on an uninterrupted supply of these raw materials, materials, and components, etc.
