FT quotes Adar: Dose scarcity to go on until July

As India fights the second wave of Covid-19 and a crippling scarcity of vaccines, Serum Institute of India (SII) chief govt Adar Poonawalla has mentioned the scarcity of vaccine would proceed by means of July.
According to a ‘Financial Times’ report, Poonawalla has mentioned that manufacturing of vaccines is anticipated to extend in July from about 60 – 70 million doses a month to about 100million.
The scarcity comes at a time when India has opened vaccination for all adults from May 1.
The report quoted Poonawalla saying that the authorities didn’t anticipate to confront a second wave again in January when new Covid-19 circumstances had declined. “Everybody really felt that India had started to turn the tide on the pandemic,” he was quoted as saying.
Defending his agency, Poonawalla instructed the newspaper that SII had been maligned by politicians and critics over the vaccine shortages.
“I’ve been victimised very unfairly and wrongly,” he instructed the newspaper, including that he had not boosted capability earlier as a result of “there were no orders, we did not think we needed to make more than 1billion doses a year”.
Earlier on Saturday night time, the Serum CEO posted on Twitter: “Had an excellent meeting with all our partners & stakeholders in the U.K. Meanwhile, pleased to state that COVISHIELD’s production is in full swing in Pune. I look forward to reviewing operations upon my return in a few days.”
SII is producing the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and has provided 90 per cent of the vaccine doses which were given to Indian nationals thus far.