Pune mayor writes to Centre, seeks nod for procuring Covishield doses directly from SII

Amid the third phase of COVID-19 vaccine drive, Pune mayor, Murlidhar Mohol, on Tuesday wrote a letter to the Central Government requesting permission to directly buy vaccines from city-based Serum Institute of India (SII). The mayor wrote a letter to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan for local civic body to procure vaccines from SII that produces Covishield. In his letter, the mayor highlighted that SII is ready to cooperate if Centre provides required permissions. Mayor Murlidhar Mohol said that he wrote for SII as it is based in Pune. 

'We are also planning to float a global tender for vaccines. Since the SII is located in Pune, I wrote to the SII and had a couple of meetings with PMC commissioner Vikram Kumar and their officials. The SII is ready to cooperate but they asked us to get permission from the Union health ministry," PTI quoted Pune mayor, Murlidhar Mohol.

The manufacturing plants of SII are situated on the outskirts of Pune. Mayor Mohol and other officials also met with SII officials and sought at least 25 lakh doses for Pune city. Following the discussions, the mayor asked for permissions from health minister and requested him to grant the PMC permission to buy vaccine doses directly from the SII by treating "Pune city as a special case"

Pune COVID-19 cases

According to the latest data, Pune recorded fresh 2,786 COVID-19 cases taking city's total tally to 10,00,330 cases. A total of 16,348 deaths have been recorded due to the infection and 9,45,974 people have recovered from COVID-19. Pune received 51,000 Covishield doses and 6,900 Covaxin doses on Tuesday. According to Maharashtra's health department data, the city has administered as many as 26.70 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine till now. 

Direct deal between manufacturers-states

While making an announcement about the vaccination drive of people above the age of 18, the Central Government, in April had also mentioned that vaccines can be directly sold to states. The Government had informed that manufacturers can directly sell to states after half of the output is given to the centre, which will release these doses, based on number of cases and wastage, to states via the Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL).