Will India have ₹80,000 crore for COVID-19 vaccine in next 1 year, asks CEO of Serum institute

Sept. 26: In a tweet by Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Saturday he asked if the central government has Rs 80,000 crore to spend over the next one year on purchase and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. He tweeted, “Quick question; will the government of India have 80,000 crores available, over the next one year? Because that’s what @MoHFW_INDIA needs, to buy and distribute the vaccine to everyone in India. This is the next concerning challenge we need to tackle.”

In the same thread of his tweet, Adar Poonawalla further wrote, “I ask this question, because we need to plan and guide, vaccine manufacturers both in India and overseas to service the needs of our country in terms of procurement and distribution.” In his tweet, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as well.

I ask this question, because we need to plan and guide, vaccine manufacturers both in India and overseas to service the needs of our country in terms of procurement and distribution.

— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) September 26, 2020

Covishield – the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and pharma giant AstraZeneca and being tested by the Serum Institute of India (SII) in India – is currently in Phase 2 and Phase 3 human trials. SII is the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume and which is conducting trials of Covid vaccine candidates ahead of mass production. The company is in pact to produce another billion doses of a vaccine developed by Novavax, for which Poonawalla’s firm will start phase 3 trials next month.

Last week Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said the government planned to use the Universal Immunisation Program (UIP) – which was introduced in India in 1978 as the Expanded Programme of Immunisation and covers all districts in a phased manner – to distribute the vaccine. The government had in May allocated Rs 100 crore to support vaccine development from the PM Cares corpus set up in March to raise funds for a prolonged battle against the coronavirus.