Vaccine major Serum Institute of India (SII) has appealed to the government to reduce the gap between second and booster doses to nine months to protect people against emerging COVID variants, according to its CEO Adar Poonawalla. Reduce it to six months. Recalling that they could not meet their commitment to export vaccines in the first quarter of 2021 due to “so much public and opposition noise”, Poonawalla on Tuesday also advocated for a global agreement for vaccine access.
He said India and SII suffered serious reputation damage when the export of COVID vaccine was banned for almost two months during the second COVID wave. “Right now the uptake is a bit slow (for the precautionary dose) because we have a rule that you have to wait for nine months between dose two and dose three. We have appealed to the government and the experts discussing the matter to reduce this period to six months.
Poonawalla said reducing the time limit would provide a “real relief” to those who want to travel abroad. You’re only eligible for a booster dose if you took a dose in August, so we need to narrow that gap to six months. Many citizens will then be able to take the dose,” he said. He noted that all over the world there is a gap of six months or less between a second dose and a booster shot.
Asked whether the company was discussing the issue with the government, Poonawalla replied in the affirmative. “Experts and the government need to have their own discussions. We are only highlighting that from a practical point of view everyone has emphasized this need, from the desire to travel. That’s why we have proposed a gap of six months.” Make sure you are safe and that we as a nation or even reduce the chances of future lockdowns and disruptions… so I call on the government. Saying that please, for God’s sake, reduce the gap from nine months to six months, Poonawalla said.
Lauding the government for bringing in the booster policy, he said that SII has reduced the cost of Covishield from Rs 600 per shot to Rs 225 as it seeks to make it affordable and accessible to the people. He advised all eligible people to take a shot to prevent future COVID forms, which were emerging at various places.
Poonawalla said Pune-based Vaccine is compensating major private hospitals through three doses to accommodate them at lower prices. “So any hospital who has Rs 600 old stock need not sell them at a loss, we give them more vials so that they do not go into loss. We don’t want them to lose money on the old stock.”
Poonawalla said he is working on a global pandemic treaty that supports harmonization of regulatory standards during the global pandemic situation at the Davos summit next month. “We need to address not only as a nation… we need global harmonization of regulatory standards in the event of a pandemic. We need mutual recognition of vaccine certificates. We need to have free flow of raw materials and vaccines goods in distress so that it can be shared,” he said.
According to him, with a global pandemic pact, countries can always exercise their sovereign rights or whatever it may be instead of abstaining from it, but it will become very difficult for political leaders to do so on a global scale. “It will also make it easier for politicians to convince their constituents in their countries that this is the right thing to do and we have committed and signed on to do it globally,” he said.
He said vaccine exports were affected during the second wave of COVID-19. “We were trying to export vaccines in the first quarter of 2021. The opposition, the government and others felt that all vaccines should remain in India. But what we probably fail to communicate to them as a community is that we get a lot of reciprocity from other countries because India is the medicine of the world.”
He continued: “And our help and support to other countries gives us a lot of other things that I won’t go into at the moment, including the fact that when we need oxygen, when we need other things If so, other countries have stepped up. And helped us because we supported them.” The country should have continued to give some vaccines but there was so much public and opposition noise that the government had no option but to accept and keep all vaccines for India, Poonawalla said. Said. It damaged the reputation of Indian companies in India and abroad that had made commitments. So it is sometimes not easy to express and articulate all these things and, you know, the media and the public at large in crisis. It’s very difficult to manage with communication. And I hope these are some lessons going forward.”
He said having a treaty would make it all clear and those commitments would be given ahead of time. He said the Indian government at some point helped the company get raw materials from the US during the pandemic.
“It wasn’t necessary in the sense that if we had a treaty and understanding at the country level, it would be automatic. And that’s what we need to do,” he said.
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