Amid explosive demand, SII plans Covid-19 vaccine production outside India, says report

Amid unprecedented demand for the Covashield vaccine due to an explosion of coronavirus cases in the country, the Serum Institute of India is planning to start vaccine production in other countries, news agency Reuters reported. SII is currently manufacturing anti-coronavirus vaccine Covishield, developed by Astrazeneca and Oxford University

“There’s going to be an announcement in the next few days,” Adar Poonawalla was quoted as saying by the newspaper in an interview published on Friday.

The pharma company’s announcement came as it struggles to meet supply commitments. SII is producing 90 per cent of India’s Covid-19 vaccines at a time when the pandemic is battering the second most populous country on Earth.

Poonawalla said last week that the Serum Institute will be able to raise its monthly output of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine to 100 million doses by July from the present capacity of 60-70 million. He also hoped to increase the Serum Institute’s production capacity from 2.5 billion to 3 billion doses a year within six months, the Times reported

India initially immunised the most vulnerable, but broadened that to anyone over 45 years on April 1 because of a surge in cases. It has now allowed all citizens over 18 years of age to get vaccinated from May 1. Several states in India have run out of vaccines against COVID-19.

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India on Saturday reported over 4 lakh cases, the highest single-day surge so far. According to data from the Union Health Ministry, India saw 4,01,993 fresh Coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 1,91,64,969. As many as 3,523 people died due to Covid-linked complications.