New Delhi: A day after India crossed the 100 crore vaccination mark, Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla announced that covid-19 vaccine for kids’ Covovax’ to launch by February 2021.
Additionally, Poonawalla said that SII has spent over Rs. 10,000 crores on the production and distribution of the Covishield vaccine.
SII claimed that ‘Covovax’ could be administered to children as young as 2-3 years.
“We bet on the partnership we had with AstraZeneca. We had absolutely no idea which vaccine would work. We have seen scale-up issues with other manufacturers. It has worked out well for us with AstraZeneca-Oxford. We are talking to a few companies for fill and finish. Fill-finish can be done with several partners. Covovax could be filled at Biocon or our facility.” Poonawalla said to CNBC-TV18 in an interview.
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Poonawalla, giving the stock of the orders by the government, said, “Till December, the government has placed orders for 200 million doses per month.”
Further, talking about the availability of the Covovax vaccine, he said, “We have submitted the data to WHO. Vaccine stock cannot become a barrier; we have stock for a month. So by February, we should get the approval for immunization of Covovax to children as young as 2-3 years.”
On Thursday (October 21), India attained the 100 crores vaccination drive against Covid-19, which started on January 16, 2021.
The official report said, over 75 per cent of India’s adult population has administered at least the first dose of covid vaccine and around 31 per cent has received both doses of the vaccine.
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