Does Govt Have Rs 80K Crore To Buy & Distribute COVID Vaccine In India, Asks Poonawalla

Pune: Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Saturday raised some serious concerns regarding the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine in the country.

Poonawalla asked whether the Indian government will have Rs 80,000 crores over the next one year as that’s the money that will be required to ‘buy and distribute’ corona vaccine for everyone in the country.

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. @PMOIndia

— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) September 26, 2020

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 candidate being developed by Oxford University in association with British pharma giant AstraZeneca, is in Phase 2 and Phase 3 human trials in India, with the tests being conducted by Pune-based SII.

In an interview to NDTV, Poonawalla had indicated that Covishield would cost around Rs 1000 and it could take two years to inoculate the entire population of country.

Bloomberg also had earlier observed that India had “no experience of, and infrastructure for, mass immunization across age groups.”

During his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured that whenever a vaccine is ready, the government has a ‘roadmap’ to ensure it reaches every Indian in the least amount of time.

SII, which is also testing other vaccine candidates, will be mass producing Covishield, if successful.

They will also manufacture US biotech firm Codagenix Inc’s potential vaccine CDX-005, whose human trials are expected to start at end of 2020.

The entire world is eagerly awaiting an effective vaccine for the deadly virus.

There are over 150 vaccine candidates being developed and tested all over the world, pf which 38 are in human trial stage.