SII stopped production of Covishield vaccine since December 2021, says CEO Adar Poonwalla
Oct 20, 2022
Pune (Maharashtra) [India], October 20 : Chief Executive Officer of Serum Institute of India (SII), Adar Poonawalla, on Thursday said that the medical firm stopped the production of the Covishield vaccine since December 2021.
"Since December 2021, we have stopped the production of the Covishield vaccine. We had a stock of a few hundred million doses at that time and of that 100 million doses had already expired," Poonawalla told the reporters on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of the developing countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network on Thursday in Pune.
He further said that some vaccines are allowed to be mixed with others for booster doses, "Now Covovax should be allowed be mixed soon in two weeks, So I think they will and should probably have the policy to mix boosters," he stated.
"If WHO allowed it, then maybe the Indian regulator will and should allow it, but again boosters have no demand now. There is general lethargy among people. People are fed of COVID vaccines. To be honest, I am also fed up with it. We all are," he added.
"In India, there is no culture of taking flu shots as we see in the west. We tried when we launched a few vaccines in 2010. During H1NI pandemic in 2011, no one took it. Flu is not something that sounds scary to people. They just do not want to take it," he further added.
