CEO Poonawalla declares India could resume vaccine exports

World: India has suspended vaccine distribution globally for the past month due to a lack of resources explained by the Serum Institute Of India CEO, Adar Poonawalla.

Recently Adar Poonawalla has declared that the company will resume the exports of vaccine again. However, PAHO under the COVAX facility distributed a large number of vaccines to the Caribbean and Americas in a satisfactory manner.

Why there was a suspension in vaccine exports?

India has encountered a sudden spike in exogenous coronavirus cases. India has registered a massive surge of 126,315 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. With this, India has seen the biggest-ever daily surge, taking the score to 12,928,789, according to MoHFW. Active cases have passed the 900,000-mark and now stand at 910,319. India is now the 4th-worst-hit nation in terms of active cases.

Mumbai has reported 10,428 coronavirus cases, Pune 11,023, Delhi 5,506 coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours. Maharashtra recorded 59,907 new COVID-19 cases.

These stats, as mentioned above, made the CEO think about his nation as a priority. He stated, “fancied to prioritize India temporarily for two months.”

If India’s increase in infections doesn’t dwindle, “I am scared of what … we will have to do, and what will happen,” he said. “We are going to have to keep providing to India and not anywhere else. Because we have to protect our country.”

He recognized that had put a “strain on our contractual duties” to provide vaccines to other nations and that he has been fielding phone calls from several heads of state.

“I’ve had to explain to everybody the situation politely,” he said, adding that most world leaders understood because they were suffering the same issues — the requirements of domestic governments and questions proposed by opposition parties and the populace.

CEO’s statement: 

“Nationalism is happening … to a specific extent, everywhere,” Poonawalla stated, pointing to vaccine export controls commanded by Europe and the application in the United States of the Defense Production Act to restrict exports of critical raw elements needed to scale up vaccine construction.

He announced the unavailability of these natural materials, such as the specific medium required to grow microorganisms, could influence the Serum Institute’s creation of another vaccine, Novavax, which is still being examined in India. 

It has approved a deal to supply Novavax to COVAX, but swivelling to different suppliers of the raw elements would result in a delay of five to six months, he announced.

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