Mumbai: The CEO of the Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla, on Tuesday said a COVID-19 vaccine for children who are above 3 years of age should be ready in six months.
He noted that the SII, in tandem with two other companies, which are working on developing the vaccine, is in the trial phase of its latest offering.
Novavax, which is the world's largest producer of vaccines titled Covovax, has shown good results in the trials in this segment, Poonawalla told a conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
"Our vaccine will be launched in six months. It is under trial and has shown excellent data all the way down to the age group of 3."
Apart from the Novavax vaccine that it has already exported to countries such as Indonesia, SII also makes the AstraZeneca and Sputnik shots.
‘’Globally, including in India, the supply of vaccines has outmatched its demand," said Poonawalla, adding that certain countries have only vaccinated 10% or 15% of the population; they really need to go up to 60-70%.
‘’To keep up the momentum, these countries need to come together and have some standard rules for clinical trials and manufacturing of the vaccines. Multilateral organizations and policymakers should be able to identify and isolate the new mutation/s and find out the efficacy of the vaccine against it, in a time-bound manner,'' said Poonawalla.
His statement came days after SII's monthly output of the AstraZeneca vaccine has nearly quadrupled since April to 250 million doses, and it has announced plans to temporarily halve that production due to weak demand.
On the Omicron virus, Poonawala apprised that they are working towards developing the vaccine booster shot which is more effective. ‘On the back of enough data, it is safe to say that booster vaccines are a proven strategy to get antibodies up to a great extent,’ he added.
Commending the Government of India’s role in tackling the challenges posed by the pandemic in the last two years, he stated that going forward, the government and industry should work even more closely to further improve the business environment and simplify the rules and regulations for manufacturers to expand the sector.
