Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla warns of shortage of coronavirus vaccine for all until 2024

Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla says it would take at least four to five years to immunise the world against COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive of Serum Institute of India (SII), has said that it would take at least four to five years to immunise the world against COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2, said a report. Warning of a shortage of coronavirus vaccine until the end of 2024, the CEO of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer also said that pharmaceutical firms are not increasing production capacity swiftly enough to vaccine the entire world’s population.

“It’s going to take four to five years until everyone gets the vaccine on this planet,” Poonawalla said during an interview with the Financial Times. Poonawala also raised concerns about vaccine distribution in India, in the absence of a sophisticated cold chain infrastructure to help transport the vaccine to the country’s 1.4 billion people.

“I still don’t see a proper plan on paper to do that [in India] beyond 400m doses. You don't want a situation with the vaccine where you have the capacity for your country but you can’t consume it,” he was quoted as saying.

Poonawalla had said that the world would need 15 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines if coronavirus vaccination is a two-dose programme - similar to the measles or rotavirus vaccinations.

The Pune-based firm is currently producing 1.5 billion doses of polio, measles and influenza vaccines for 170 countries. The firm had tied up with five global pharma companies, including AstraZeneca, to produce coronavirus vaccines. SII plans to produce 1 billion doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, half of which it has pledged to India. The phase 3 trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca's candidate AZD1222 vaccine, dubbed Covishield in India, have resumed in the UK following confirmation by the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority that it was safe to resume. The phase 3 testing of the vaccine was put on hold due to a suspected serious adverse reaction in a participant in the United Kingdom.

"Clinical trials for the AstraZeneca Oxford coronavirus vaccine, AZD1222, have resumed in the UK following confirmation by the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA) that it was safe to do so," Astra Zeneca said in a statement.