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India has been facing huge vaccine shortage for the past months. Amidst this crisis, the major Indian pharma, Wockhardt is looking forward to declare a major production deal for an undisclosed vaccine. The official announcement is yet to be made in the coming weeks. In an interview to NDTV, Dr. Habil Khorakiwala, the chairman of Wockhardt proposed that the production of the vaccine will begin in the month of October.
On the availability of the vaccine in December, Dr. Khorakiwala said, “Our arrangement is as contract manufacturer with the principal innovator with the principal innovator. We will be supplying it to them and they will introduce it to India.” He added that the company will manufacture 500 million doses a year. Further on the pricing of the vaccine Dr. Habil Khorakiwala stated, “We have only a price agreement between us and them but what price they will put depend upon them.”
According to experts, the only way to cope up with the third wave is to progress steadily with vaccination. In the second wave of Covid 19, the centre was caught completely unprepared, as a result this time it has set itself to a steep target to vaccinate one crore of the population by August. The centre has put forward that they aims to vaccinate the entire population by the month of December. As yet, the three vaccine available in the country are Serum Institute Covishield, indigenously developed Covaxin from Bharat Biotech and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
So far, the country has vaccinated almost 3 percent of the population and requires nearly 2.5 billion vaccine doses. As there are speculations, that the third wave’s prime target will be the children, there vaccinations too is of uttered importance. Nation’s like US and Canada have already started vaccinating the children.
The government is in talks with Pfizer and Moderna, vaccine manufacturer from abroad who have insisted on indemnity clause. The government confirmed that it has also booked 30 crore doses of new Covid vaccine from Hyderabad based Biological- E. The vaccine has done well in the first two phrases and is in Phase 3 clinical trial. After Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, this is the second indigenous vaccine.
Foreign Secretary, Harsh Vardhan Shringla clarified, “We are also part of discussions with major vaccine manufacturer like Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, and Moderna about sourcing and possible local manufacturing of their vaccines in India. We have also helped to expedite the introduction of the Sputnik-V vaccine.”