Serum Institute of India to stop production of Kovishield vaccine from December 2021: Adar Poonawalla

 

Adar Poonawalla, Chief Executive Officer, Serum Institute of India.

• There is generally lethargy. People are fed up with COVID, vaccines. To be honest, I am fed up with it too. We are all, said Adar Poonawalla

Serum Institute of India (SII) chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla said that SII had stopped production of the Kovidshield vaccine from December last year.

"Since December 2021, we have stopped production of the Kovishield vaccine. At that time we had a stock of a few hundred million doses and out of that 100 million doses were already exhausted," Poonawalla told reporters on the sidelines of the annual general meeting. Said to. Meeting of the Vaccine Manufacturers Network of Developing Countries in Pune on Thursday.

He added that some vaccines are allowed to be mixed with others for booster doses, "Now Kovovax should be allowed to mix sooner in two weeks, so I think they will have and should have a booster mix policy." ," They said.

There is generally lethargy. People are fed up with COVID, vaccines. To be honest, I am fed up with it too. We all are," he said. Going forward, when people get a few shots every year, they can take anti-coronavirus vaccines and other shots together, Poonawalla said, "it will become that kind of product." In India, there is no culture of getting the flu shot as we see it in the West. We tried it when we launched some vaccines in 2010. During the H1NI pandemic in 2011, no one took it. The flu is not something that people find scary. They just don't want to take it." Covishield was produced at SII's Pune facility with a master seed from Oxford University and AstraZeneca. SII announced its partnership with Oxford University to develop the vaccine in April 2020.

"If WHO allows it, maybe the Indian regulator will and should allow it, but again there is no demand for boosters anymore. There is general lethargy among people. People are fed COVID vaccines. Frankly, I I am fed up with it too. We all are," he said.