SII's Poonawalla asks all to be patient for vaccine; 'prioritising India; balancing world'

The CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII) Adar Poonawalla on Sunday has made an appeal asking the world to be patient as the Indian government has asked his company to prioritise the internal vaccine needs and then balance the requirement of vaccine globally. 

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar announced at an open debate of UN Security Council the 'implementation of resolution 2532 (2020) on the cessation of hostilities' in the context of Covid-19 outbreak. Followed by this development, India earlier this week announced that it will gift 2 lakh doses of vaccines for UN peacekeepers. 

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Poonawala in a tweet wrote, “Dear countries & governments, as you await COVISHIELD supplies, I humbly request you to please be patient. We are trying our best.”  SII is manufacturing the Oxford-AstraZenca vaccine in India under the Covishield name and Poonawalla has been directed to balance the development and supply of vaccines to the entire world. 

India has become a source to the world for the supply of vaccine, given its large manufacturing capacity. SII's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin have served the purpose of providing vaccinations to Brazil, Mexico and Canada along with Bangladesh among other neighbours. As such, India has sent vaccines to over a dozen countries and promised even more. Before the vaccine, India had also been providing countries with supplies of medicines and PPEs. 

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Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also recently sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's help in procuring Covid-19 vaccinations. While Modi assured Trudeau that the latter will be provided with the vaccines at the earliest, Poonawalla tweeted, 'As we await regulatory approvals from Canada, I assure you, Serum Institute of India will fly out COVISHIELD to Canada in less than a month; I’m on it!" Here's the tweet

The total number of coronavirus cases globally till date are 111,654,017 while 2,472,387 people have succumbed to the virus. With combined efforts in place involving nations, 86,824,596 people have also recovered.

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India's SII, Bharat Biotech, Zydus Cadilla, Panacea Biotec, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax and Biological E;  US' Oxford University with AstraZenca, Moderna Therapeutics, Ocugen Inc; Britain's Covax are a few in many candidates that have been playing a significant role in developing, manufacturing, supply and administration of Covid-19 vaccines.

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