India is likely to take at least three to four months to complete Covid-19 inoculation efforts for front-line workers and people over the age of 60 or with underlying health conditions, the executive director of the Serum Institute said on Thursday. India.
In January, the South Asian country launched the world’s largest vaccination campaign for about 300 million people from its massive 1.3 billion population. As of Wednesday night, more than 36 million people have been inoculated on data from the Indian Ministry of Health.
“The number of doses needed in India is huge,” Suresh Jadhav told CNBC’s Capital Connection, adding that the vaccination program is a gigantic task that is impossible to rush to complete in a short period of time.
“At a rate of about 50 (million) to 60 million doses per month, this program will continue and will cover this population of 300 million in another three to four months,” he said.
Jadhav attended the 2021 Southeast Asia Development Symposium of the Asian Development Bank this week.
The Serum Institute in Pune, India, has emerged as a crucial player in Covid vaccination efforts both in India and globally. It is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume and manufactures the Covid-19 vaccine developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which is known locally as Covishield.
It provided millions of doses to the Indian government, as well as Covax, a global vaccination initiative led by the World Health Organization and others to ensure a fair distribution of fires in less rich countries.
An Exterior View of the Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. producing the Covid-19 vaccine at Hadapsar on November 23, 2020 in Pune, India.
Pratham Gokhale | Hindustan Times | Getty Images
Responding to the growing demand for the Covid vaccine, Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla last month called on foreign governments to be patient and said, without further explanation, the company was told to respond to domestic demand first.
Jadhav explained that the Serum Institute is able to fulfill the current orders that have been placed by the Indian government and said that it has already supplied approximately 59 million doses to Covax. He added that the Serum Institute intends to expand its capacity by the end of April or the beginning of May, when it aims to increase production by another 40 million to 50 million doses.
Currently, the Serum Institute can produce over 70 million doses per month.
Last week, the United States, Japan and Australia pledged to help Indian companies expand their Covid vaccine production capacity and deliver more doses to the global supply pool.
India also uses a locally developed vaccine from Bharat Biotech, which was created in collaboration with the state-run Indian Medical Research Council.