Leading Virologist’s Skepticism About Govt Claim On COVID Vaccines Goes Viral

Photo courtesy: The Indian Express

New Delhi: Eminent Indian virologist, Gagandeep Kang is skeptical about the Centre’s claim that it will get over 2 billion doses of vaccine from August to December. The production capacity of vaccine makers such as Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech is yet to ramp up, she said.

There is also no sufficient data to show the efficacy of Bharat Biotech’s nasal vaccine and Zydus Cadila’s DNA vaccine, she told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.

“I take the projections with a grain of salt. If you remember, last year, we were told that, by December, Serum Institute would produce 100 million doses of vaccine and Bharat Biotech in tens of millions of doses. There was going to be a large stockpile that was available with them. As we have found, that is not the case,” Kang told Moneycontrol.

It may be recalled that some states have floated global tenders for procuring a total of 121 million vaccine doses.