- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Pramod Kumar
PUNE-based Serum Institute of India (SII) will start production of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine from September.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Serum Institute unveiled plans on Tuesday (13) to meet India’s demand.
RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which promotes the vaccine globally, said the plan was to produce over 300 million doses of the vaccine per year in India, the leading production hub for Sputnik V.
Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s CEO, told reporters that the first batches of the vaccine produced would be earmarked for India, which with a coronavirus caseload of 30.91 million infections has recorded the world’s second-highest number of cases behind the US.
Dmitriev said RDIF was however in talks with the Indian government about the possibility of exporting some doses produced under the agreement to third countries once the immediate needs of the Indian population had been met.
Production has not yet started. SII, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, has already received cell and vector samples from Russia’s Gamaleya Centre, RDIF said.
“With their import approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), the cultivation process has begun,” RDIF said in a statement.
Dmitriev said he expected the first batches of the vaccine to be produced in the coming months and for production to “ramp up” quickly this year.
Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, said in the same statement he hoped that millions of doses could be produced in the coming months and that trial batches would be available from September.
Sputnik V comprises two components and the second one has proved harder to manufacture in Russia.
RDIF did not say whether SII would make both components or just the first one.
A one-shot version, comprising the first shot only, is called Sputnik Light.
India’s full rollout of Sputnik V has been put on hold until a Russian producer provides equal quantities of its two differing doses, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, which markets and distributes it inside India, said on Monday (12).
It said it so far received far fewer doses of the second component than the first one.
Some countries have widened the gap between administering the two doses to prioritise vaccinating as many people as possible with the first component.
RDIF has been looking into the possibility of mixing Sputnik with AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s shots. Dmitriev said the results of trials exploring the safety and efficacy of that combination were expected by the end of July.
Sputnik V vaccine has been registered in 67 countries globally with a total population of over 3.5 billion people, RDIF said in its statement.
2,020 fresh deaths
India’s Covid-19 death toll climbed to 410,784 with 2,020 new deaths recorded after Madhya Pradesh reconciled its fatality data.
The country also reported 31,443 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday taking the total cases to 30,905,819.
The active cases have declined to 431,315 and comprise 1.40 per cent of the total infections.
The national Covid-19 recovery rate has increased to 97.28 per cent, showed the health ministry data.
As many as 1,740,325 tests were conducted on Monday (12) taking the total number of cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of Covid-19 in the country to 434,058,138.
The daily positivity rate has declined to 1.81 per cent. It has been less than three per cent for 22 consecutive days, the ministry said.
Cumulative vaccine doses administered so far has reached 381.4 million under the nationwide vaccination drive.
The most number of causalities were reported from Maharashtra (126,024), Karnataka (35,896), Tamil Nadu (33,454), Delhi (25,018), Uttar Pradesh (22,700), West Bengal (17,927) and Punjab (16,193).
