New Delhi, April 7 (IANS): The Indian Serum Institute of Adar Poonavala (SII) has received legal notification from AstraZeneca about delays in the delivery of the Covid vaccine.
Poonawalla mentioned that Covishield’s existing production facilities in India are under pressure due to increased demand in India.
Poonawalla also mentions that the Indian government’s break in Covishield’s main deliveries to other countries and the “first request” deal with India were reportedly difficult to explain abroad, where the vaccine is sold at a higher dose.
In March, AstraZeneca announced deliveries to 142 countries in progress as part of an unprecedented effort to ensure broad and equitable access to the vaccine.
AstraZeneca and its partner Serum Institute in India will be the largest initial supplier of COVAX, the pharmaceutical company announced.
AstraZeneca’s first of many millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine has begun to arrive in low- and middle-income countries around the world through the multilateral COVAX initiative, Astrazeneca said.
The first shipments of COVAX were sent to Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, also countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, Fiji, Mongolia and Moldova. This delivery is the first vaccine against COVID-19 for many of these countries.
AstraZeneca said the next shipments would arrive in the coming weeks to provide a total of 142 countries with hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine in the coming months.
Most of these doses produced by AstraZeneca and its licensing partner Serum Institute of India will go to low- and middle-income countries.