Heena Sharma Blog

  India's rising output of Covid-19 vaccines and the inoculation of more than half its adult population with at least one dose are raising hopes the country will return as an exporter within months, ramping up from early next year. After donating or selling 66 million doses to nearly 100 countries, India barred exports in the middle of April to focus on domestic immunisation as infections exploded, upsetting the inoculation plans of many African and South Asian countries. India's daily vaccinations surpassed 10 million doses on Friday, with national vaccine production more than doubling since April and set to rise again in the coming weeks. New production lines have been set up, a vaccine developed by Cadila Healthcare won recent approval, and commercial production of Russia's Sputnik V is starting in India. The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, is now producing about 150 million doses a month of its version of the AstraZeneca sho...

  AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing partner in Southeast Asia has missed a delivery target in Thailand and shipments to other countries in the region have been delayed, the latest setback for a shot that was meant to be the backbone of the global inoculation effort. Thailand was slated to receive and administer 6 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses in June but health authorities this week said they would be distributing only about 3.5 million of those shots this month. Pledging to still give out 6 million doses as planned, officials appear to be making up the shortfall with millions of shots from China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. Shipments of shots made by Siam Bioscience -- AstraZeneca’s Bangkok-based partner, which has links to the Thai royal family -- to Malaysia and the Philippines have also been delayed, though both countries say they don’t expect to be waiting for too long. The situation comes on top of delivery problems at India’s Serum Institute of India Ltd...

  In a much-awaited move, India has allowed Covid vaccination for all above 18 years of age, starting May 1. The decision, taken at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, is expected to change the course of the pandemic currently raging through the country. India Inc and political parties have for long demanded the opening up of vaccination for all adults. In a departure from the current policy, the government has also allowed states to procure additional vaccine doses directly from the manufacturers. Vaccine supply to open market and industries has been permitted as well with conditions. In fact, the government will allow the imported ready-to-use vaccines to be entirely utilised in the open market. While the pricing arrangements have not been revealed, the latest announcement clubbed with the recent proposal to fast-track clearances could attract a host of foreign vaccine-makers, according to officials. Vaccination would continue free of cost in governm...

  Vaccine nationalism in countries including the U.S. and India is likely to derail efforts by the World Health Organization to deliver 2 billion doses to poorer and middle-income nations by the end of the year, according to the head of the world’s biggest vaccine maker. Countries are holding tight to their supplies and restricting access to materials needed to make more, said Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer of the Serum Institute of India Ltd. The company is responsible for providing more than half of the shots used so far in the WHO-backed Covax program that aims to provide equitable vaccine access across the world. Many manufacturers, including Serum, already have missed timelines and commitments, Poonawalla said in an interview with Bloomberg Live that aired on Wednesday for the Bloomberg Equality Summit. It will take two to three months for shipments to Covax to really pick up, and reaching the 2021 target of 2 billion doses will be challenging, he said, predicti...

  Following a sluggish start, India’s Covid-19 vaccination drive -- one of the world’s biggest -- has jumped nearly four-fold after the country opened it up to more people and got a crucial public endorsement from the inoculation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Almost 21 million shots have been administered in India so far, up from 5.4 million a month ago, according to data compiled as of Sunday by Bloomberg and Johns Hopkins University. The number of doses per 100 people has also climbed to 1.56 from 0.41. A record 1.6 million Indians received a Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday, data show. After an initially lukewarm response -- due in part to the controversial approval of a homegrown vaccine before it had completed clinical trials -- the vaccination drive gained some momentum after Modi took the injection on March 1 and urged others to follow suit. India also opened the rollout to all citizens above 60 years of age and those 45 and older with co-morbidities, either for free fro...

  After providing coronavirus vaccines to several countries including Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives, India on Thursday established its position as a reliable partner in COVID-19 assistance by dispatching Covishield vaccines to Bahrain and Sri Lanka. A consignment of 50,400 doses of coronavirus vaccines will be provided by India to Sri Lanka under the Vaccine Maitri initiative, while Bahrain will receive get 10,800 doses. The Covishield vaccine developed by Serum Institute of India (SII) was loaded to the cargo aircraft at Mumbai and left as per schedule at 7:55 am for Manama. The vaccine consignment for Colombo was delayed for 15 minutes and is scheduled to leave at 9:00 am. Read More

  UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is saddened by the loss of life in a fire at the Serum Institute of India facility in Pune and hopes that the incident is fully investigated, his spokesperson has said. Five men died after a fire broke out in a five-storeyed under-construction building in the Serum Institute of India's Manjari premises in Pune on Thursday, police said. The Manjari facility is where the Covishield vaccines used in the nationwide inoculation drive against the pandemic are made. The building where fire broke out is one km from the Covishield vaccine manufacturing unit. We, obviously, are saddened by the loss of life and send our condolences to the families impacted, and we hope the fire is fully investigated, Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said at the daily press briefing on Thursday. Read More

  As a gift from India, the first consignment of 1.5 lakh dosages of COVID-19 vaccine ' Covishield ' was dispatched to Thimphu, Bhutan from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Mumbai in the wee hours of Wednesday. According to the sources, a consignment containing 1,50,000 doses of Covishield will reach Thimphu today. Bhutan is the first country to receive the Government of India's gift of the COVID vaccines, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII). In line with India-Bhutan unique and special relations, India ensured a continuous supply of trade and essential items to Bhutan, despite COVID-19 restrictions. India so far has provided essential medicines and medical supplies- including paracetamol, hydroxychloroquine, PPEs, N95 masks, x-ray machines and test kits worth over Rs 2.8 cores to Bhutan. It also entered into an "Air Travel Arrangement" or "Transport Bubble" agreement with Bhutan. India has facilitated the repat...

  Security has been stepped up at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital from where the first consignment of Covishield vaccines from Pune will be transported to different parts of the city on Tuesday, police said. A SpiceJet flight carrying the vaccines landed at the Delhi airport around 10 am on Tuesday, four days ahead of the launch of a nationwide drive against the coronavirus. Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport) Rajeev Ranjan said PCR vans along with local police will escort the vehicles carrying vaccines to its designated places. He said sufficient security arrangements have been put in place to facilitate the transportation of vaccines. Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Manish Agarwal said, "If any schedule and movement of vaccine is shared with us and if facilitation is asked for, we will provide it." Read More

  Like many things in India nowadays, the science of vaccine approval has also run into the politics of chest-thumping nationalism. Alongside authorising Covishield, the Covid-19 protection developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca Plc and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India Ltd., the country’s drugs regulator on Sunday gave a go-ahead to an indigenous vaccine for which critical phase three trial data isn’t yet available. The hasty nod for Bharat Biotech International Ltd.’s Covaxin , developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology, has raised eyebrows in the scientific and healthcare communities about a “public rollout of an untested product,” according to a national network of nongovernment organizations. This is unfortunate. With more than 10 million coronavirus infections, India is the world’s second-worst-affected nation after the U.S. New Delhi’s strategy for vaccinating 1.3 billion people will mat...

  A trial participant claims to have suffered a neurological illness (acute encephalopathy) and was hospitalised 10 days after he received the first jab of the vaccine in the Covishield trial . He sent a legal notice to the Serum Institute of India (SII), the sponsor of the trial, seeking Rs 5 crore in damages. Serum Institute has in response stated that the allegations made in the legal notice are ‘malicious and misconceived’, and that it will seek damages in excess of Rs 100 crore. Read More

India's pharmaceutical industry will be able to produce Covid-19 vaccines not just for the country but also for the entire world, according to Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates. A lot of "very important things have been done" in India and its pharma industry is doing work "to help make the coronavirus vaccine building on other great capacities that they have used for other diseases", said the Co-Chair and Trustee of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Speaking in a documentary -- Covid-19: India's War Against The Virus -- to be premiered on Discovery Plus Thursday evening, Gates said India also faces a huge challenge due to the health crisis because of its gigantic size and urban centres with a lot of population density. Read More

Serum Institute’s recombinant BCG vaccine would be the first vaccine candidate in India to start human trials within the next two weeks. This is to test if the vaccine, administered at birth to Indians to fight tuberculosis, can also boost immunity in adults against the novel coronavirus. If all goes well, the vaccine, which has a proven safety track record, can be in the market by the end of this year. Serum Institute can make 300-400 million doses of this vaccine. The Bacillus Calmette-Gurein (BCG) vaccine named after French microbiologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin, is given to infants in India upon birth. Globally, the practice is to administer it to children below one year of age. Read More