Vaccine production cannot be ramped up overnight — Poonawalla

New Delhi, May 3 (PTI): With states scrambling to secure vaccines, Adar Poonawalla — whose firm is the main supplier of Covid vaccine in India — on Monday said his firm cannot ramp up production overnight as vaccine making is a specialised process.

Serum Institute of India (SII) has orders from the Government of India to supply 11 crore more doses over the next few months on top of 15 crore already supplied, he said in a statement.

Another 11 crore doses will be supplied to states and private hospitals in the next few months, he said.

He, however, did not give a timeline for supplying the vaccines.

Pune-based SII can produce 6-7 crore doses a month and is reportedly planning to ramp up production to 10 crore by July.

Facing the world’s fastest-growing coronavirus outbreak, India has seen a near collapse of its health care system in several parts as hospitals ran out of oxygen and did not have enough beds to admit new patients.

To deal with the crisis, the government has among other measures, opened up vaccination for all above 18 years. But the procurement of vaccines for those between 18 and 44 years has been left to states and private hospitals.

This has led to state after state rushing to SII, which can meet only a small part of the demand.

Poonawalla, who had last week cited unprecedented “pressure and aggression” for him and his family temporarily leaving the country for the UK, said “everyone wants the vaccine to be available in the quickest possible time.”

“This is our endeavour toSerum is licensed to manufacture Covid shots from AstraZeneca Plc and Novavax Inc. But so far, the government has approved only AstraZeneca’s Covishield vaccine for use.

The government has also approved the homegrown Covaxin vaccine of Bharat Biotech. Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine too has been approved for emergency use.

Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in a statement said 11 crore doses of Covishield are to come from SII during May, June and July. Another 5 rore doses of Covaxin have been ordered from Bharat Biotech India Ltd for the same months.