- Wednesday, May 08, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has plans to launch the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine for children in the country in six months’ time, its chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla said on Tuesday (14). He added that global vaccine supplies were outstripping the capacity of absorption in many nations.
The Novavax shot, which SII calls Covovax, has shown good results in trials in kids aged three and above, Poonawalla told a virtual conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
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“Our vaccine will be launched in six months,” he said, adding, “It is under trial and has shown excellent data all the way down to the age group of 3.”
Besides the Novavax shot which it has already exported to nations such as Indonesia, SII also makes the AstraZeneca and Sputnik jabs.
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SII’s monthly production of the AstraZeneca shot has almost quadrupled since April to 250 million doses and it has recently announced that it would reduce the production by half due to weak demand.
According to Poonawalla, the current global supply of vaccine is far more than what many nations could consume despite them vaccinating only a fraction of their population, mainly due to infrastructure-related challenges.
“Globally, including in India, the supply has outmatched the demand,” he said. “Certain countries have only vaccinated to the tune of 10 per cent or 15 per cent of the population, they really need to go to 60-70 per cent,” he said.
Recently, the chief of Africa Centres for Disease Control countered Poonawalla’s claim that vaccination has slowed down in African nations saying the SII let the continent down by pulling out of talks to supply the vaccines, creating distrust that affected demand.
Adarwalla had said that political leaders around the globe and more particularly in Africa are stalling on purchasing vaccines despite the fact that only a small percentage of their people have been inoculated.
