NEW DELHI, Dec 28: As the union home ministry on Monday announced continuation of the pandemic guidelines and the existing restrictions to remain in force till January 31, the Serum Institute of India’s chief executive Adar Poonawalla said the rollout of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) was expected next month.
Poonawalla also said the SII had about 40-50 million doses of shot.
“You will be hearing some good news from the UK very soon… By January, we should have the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine licensed,” Poonawalla said. “Once we get regulatory approvals in a few days, it’ll be down to the government to decide how much they can take and how fast,” Poonawalla said.
The Ministry of Home Affairs on Monday extended the COVID-19 guidelines for surveillance till 31 January 2021 and asked states and UTs to strictly enforce them. In a press release, the ministry said, “While there has been a continuous decline in the active & new COVID19 cases, there is need to maintain surveillance, containment & caution, keeping in view the surge in cases globally, and the emergence of a new variant of the virus in the United Kingdom.” The MHA release made it clear that the government was not contemplating any further relaxations in the guidelines than what existed presently.
Pune-based SII, which is manufacturing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in India, has already made 40 to 50 million doses of the shot, Poonawalla said. “We have 40-50 million doses of Covishield stockpiled. We will be producing around 300 million doses by July 2021,” he said.
He agreed that in the initial stage, the first one or two months, the off-take would be slow. “Once the logistics and everything work out well we can expect the rollout for Covishield in January,” the SII head said during a media interaction.
Poonawalla also talked about concerns surrounding the efficacy of Covishield claiming 92 to 95 per cent efficacy. “Regulators are evaluating the data…A lot of people keep raising issues. There are no concerns at all. 92 to 95 per cent vaccine efficiency is there,” he said.
Several European countries including Italy, Germany and France have launched their vaccination campaign from this week as a growing list of countries in the continent have identified their first cases of the disease with new strain. Till December 25, over 3,500 people have been infected from the virus variant, mostly in the UK, but steadily growing in France, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong and Singapore. South Korea became the latest country to detect the new variant on Monday.
India’s Covid-19 caseload rose to 1,02,07,871 with 20,021 infections being reported in the last 24 hours and recoveries surged to 9.78 million, according to the Union health ministry on Monday. The death toll of the world’s second-worst hit country increased to 147,901 with 279 new fatalities, data showed.
India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 2 million mark on August 7, 3 million on August 23, 4 million on September 5 and 5 million on September 16. It went past 6 million on September 28, 7 million on October 11, 8 million on October 29, 9 million on November 20 and crossed the 10 million mark on December 19.
Meanwhile, the union minister of state for health Ashwini Kumar Choubey has tested positive for Corona. In a statement on Monday, he said he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus infection. Taking to Twitter, the minister said, “On noticing the initial symptoms of corona, I got myself tested today and the report has come positive.”
(Manas Dasgupta)