VAX THE NATION: Serum Institute To Supply 11 Million Doses To Centre At Rs 200 Each

Vaccine produced by parsi firm Serum Institute owned by Cyrus and Adar Poonawalla which are stored in glass vials produced by a parsi firm Schott Kaisha owned by Rishad Dadachanji.

Vaccines batches transported by Go Air owned by Jeh Wadia.

The Beginning To End The Pandemic.

Proud and emotional moment for India 🇮🇳 and Parsis;

Tata trucks headed for the airport, carrying the first vials of Covishield vaccine rolling out of Adar Poonewalla’s Serum Institute of India in the pre dawn darkness amidst cheering, after a small Puja, underlining once again the pledge made to King Jadi Rana that the Parsi community would be like sugar in a full cup of milk, adding sweetness but not making it overflow.

Jai Hind !

The Serum Institute of India has signed a contract with the Centre to supply 11 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine at a price of Rs 200 each on Monday.The firm is the local maker of Covishield, the vaccine developed by the Oxford University and pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca. The vaccine was given emergency-use approval earlier this month, along with Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

Cyrus Poonawalla, the chairperson of the Poonawalla group, told the newspaper that the company was expecting a bigger order for vaccines next week.

Poonawalla said that the private sector should also be allowed to simultaneously roll out the vaccine. “Why should the private market and vulnerable groups – mainly elderly people – be deprived till the government starts distributing in their priority areas?” he told thenews agency.

Poonawalla added that the Serum Institute had a stock of 50 million [5 crore] doses for immediate distribution.

The Serum Institute is likely to begin dispatching vaccine doses from Tuesday. It needs to cover more than 20 locations across several states. The vaccines will be transported via air and road.

An unidentified official from the Serum Institute told the news agency that the company will supply the initial 100 million doses to the government at Rs 200 per dose. The vaccine will, however, cost Rs 1,000 when it is made available in the market by June.The Centre is planning to inoculate 300 million people in the first phase of the massive vaccination drive, which is set to begin on January 16. This would require 600 million vaccine doses.Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that the Centre will bear the cost of vaccinating about 30 million healthcare and frontline workers against the coronavirus in the first phase of India’s massive inoculation drive. He added that people above the age of 50 and those with comorbidities will get the vaccine next.

To assess the preparedness at all levels before the actual rollout of the vaccine, a third dry run on January 8 covered 4,895 sites across 615 districts in 33 states and Union Territories. Experts have said that vaccinating a billion people, including hundreds of millions of adults for the first time, against Covid-19 will be a daunting task in the first tranche.

India has so far registered 1,04,66,595 coronavirus cases and 1,51,160 deaths. As of Monday morning, the country’s active cases stood at 2,22,526 and the number of recoveries reached, 1,00,92,909. Meanwhile, the number of cases of the United Kingdom mutant virus strain rose to 96.