'Won’t be enough Covid vaccines for everyone till 2024': Serum Institute's Adar Poonawalla

As India battles COVID-19 with more than 90,000 new cases being reported daily, Adar Poonawalla, the Chief Executive of Serum Institute of India (SII), has diminished the hopes of an early COVID-19 vaccine for everyone. On Monday, the CEO and owner of the world's largest vaccine manufacturing firm warned that there won’t be enough vaccines against the coronavirus for everyone in the world till the end of 2024.

'It's going to take four to five years'

In an interview with the Financial Times, Poonawalla said that pharmaceutical companies were not increasing production capacity quickly enough to vaccinate the global population in less time. “It’s going to take four to five years until everyone gets the vaccine on this planet," he said. Poonawalla had earlier predicted that if the Coronavirus shot is a two-dose vaccine, as is the case with measles or rotavirus, then the world would require 15 billion doses.

The Pune-based pharma firm has partnered with five international pharmaceutical firms, including AstraZeneca and Novavax, to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and committed to producing one billion doses, of which it has pledged half to India, according to media reports. The newspaper reported that as part of SII’s agreement with AstraZeneca, the firm will aim to produce vaccine doses that cost around $3 for 68 countries and under its agreement with Novavax, for 92 countries.

'I still don't see a proper plan on paper'

He also raised concerns about vaccine distribution in India given the country’s poor cold chain infrastructure to transport the vaccine safely to its 1.4 billion people. “I still don’t see a proper plan on paper to do that [in India] beyond 400m doses. You don't want a situation with the vaccine where you have the capacity for your country but you can’t consume it,” he was quoted as saying by the international daily.

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Meanwhile, the Pune-based vaccine maker on Sunday said Serum Institute of India will resume clinical trials of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine candidate after getting permission from the Drugs Controller General of India(DCGI). Pharma giant AstraZeneca on Saturday said that clinical trials for the AstraZeneca Oxford coronavirus vaccine, AZD1222, have resumed in the UK following confirmation by the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA) that the trials were safe. "Once DCGI will give us the permission to restart the trials in India, we will resume the trials, "Serum Institute of India (SII) said in a statement.

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(With agency inputs)