India to face COVID-19 vaccine shortage till July, says Serum chief Adar Poonawalla

Serum Institute of India (SII) chief Adar Poonawalla revealed that the issue of vaccine shortage in India will last for months.

India is currently battling the second wave of deadly coronavirus. With over 3 lakh cases and record deaths, India’s current pandemic situation is the worst around the globe.

As per a report in the Financial Times, the SII chief revealed that in July this year, the production capacity of the COVID-19 vaccine will increase from 70 million doses a month to about 100 million doses a month.

The shortage comes at a time when India has opened vaccination for all adults from May 1.

The Centre has launched the third phase of the immunization drive, covering citizens above 18 years, several states have expressed their inability to conduct the inoculation program as they do not have sufficient vaccines. Many states are awaiting more stock from drug companies.

While speaking on the situation in India, Adar Poonawalla also highlighted that the authorities did not expect the second wave of COVID-19 to be this deadly and this soon. Everybody really felt that India had started to turn the tide on the pandemic,” Poonawalla was quoted a saying.

Adding that if the authorities would have directed his firm to increase production as a caution back in time, they would have happily complied. “There were no orders, we did not think we needed to make more than 1 billion doses a year,” Adar Poonawalla said.

Currently, the Serum Institute of India (SII) is producing the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University in the UK.

Meanwhile, India reported a spike of 3,68,147 fresh coronavirus infections, taking the cumulative caseload to 1,99,25,604 on Monday (May 3, 2021), as per data by the health ministry.