By IT Correspondent
Pune, Oct 01:
Serum Institute of India (SII), the Geneva based “ Gavi” , the Vaccine Allaince and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would accelerate the manufacture and delivery up to 100 million doses of safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine for India and other low- and middle-income countries, within the “COVAX facility”, the SII announced on Wednesday.
COVAX Facility seeks to pool in resources to accelerate the development of the most promising of the Coviod-19 candidates and plans to make it equitably accessible to all the participating countries, irrespective of their financial muscle.
The initiative brings the total number of vaccine doses to be covered by the partnership to an aggregate of up to 200 million doses, following the initial agreement for up to 100 million doses. Besides other tie-ups, SII also has entered into a manufacturing partnership with AstraZeneca to produce the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. Preparations are in progress to conduct phase III trials of the candidate vaccine in India.
The collaboration will provide upfront capital to SII to help increase manufacturing capacity. Once a vaccine gains regulatory approval and the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) prequalification, doses can be distributed to low and middle income countries as early as by the first half of 2021.
“The collaboration further bolsters our fight against Covid-19! Through the avid support of “Gavi”, the Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we will manufacture and deliver up to an additional 100 million doses of immunogenic and safe-proven future Covid-19 vaccines to India and low-and middle-income countries in 2021,” SII CEO Adar Poonawalla, said.
The funding will help accelerate the manufacturing by SII for candidate vaccines licensed from “AstraZeneca” and “Novavax”, which will be available for procurement if they are successful in attaining full licensure and the WHO’s prequalification. The vaccines will have a ceiling price of $3 per dose. The price point is enabled by investments made by partners such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Gates Foundation and SII.
“This is vaccine manufacturing for the Global South, by the Global South, helping us to ensure no country is left behind when it comes to access to a Covid-19 vaccine,” said Gavi CEO Dr Seth Berkley.
In the meanwhile the Maharashtra Government has surveyed nearly eight crore people under its anti-COVID-19 initiative- ‘My Family, My Responsibility’, which began a fortnight ago. . The survey covered 13 per cent (24 lakh) of the 1.84 crore rural households, falling under jurisdiction of Zilla Parishads. In the drive 6,938 COVID-19 patients were detected, besides, 15,392 people afflicted by severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and influenza like illness (ILI). A total of 2, 06,211 persons were found to have co- morbidities. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said the campaign will continue this month.
