Vaccine order not received from Centre will reduce production of Covishield by 50%: Adar Poonawalla

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adar-covishield

Pune: Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla has decided to reduce the production of the Covishield vaccine by at least 50 percent from next week. He has told that the pharmaceutical firm does not have any further orders from the Center for the Covid-19 vaccine. He said that we are in touch with various African leaders. We have reviewed orders of 400-500 million doses through Covax. Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla said the US has made a huge donation of vaccine doses. We are making preparations for this.

The company’s head Adar Poonawalla told News18.com in October that we are waiting for proper instructions from the Indian government regarding the export of vaccines. The COVAX program is sponsored by the Gavi Vaccine Coalition with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI). Gavi itself is a United Nations-backed organization that coordinates vaccinations around the world. Serum Institute of India, the manufacturer of Covishield, which is considered to be the backbone of the corona vaccine program in India, has increased its production capacity to 22 crore doses per month. SII CEO Poonawalla said, ‘At present, we are waiting for the Government of India to give appropriate instructions regarding the export of vaccines.’

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No rush to launch children’s vaccine
A corona vaccine for children, manufactured by SII, is expected to be launched by February. However, Poonawalla says that there will be no rush in the ongoing trials at his company. Poonawalla said, “We are looking forward to launching Covovax for children by February 2022. At present we are going through the trial phase. We will not fast-track trials for this, especially when there is no need to do so.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC TV-18, Poonawalla had said that we had bet on the partnership with AstraZeneca. We didn’t know exactly which vaccine would work. We have seen massive issues with other manufacturers. We had a great job with AstraZeneca-Oxford. We are in talks with some companies for fill and finish. Fill-finish can be done with multiple partners. Covovax can be filled at Biocon or at our facility.

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