For private buyers, Covishield will be sold to at a higher price of Rs.1000 per dose.

Adar Poonawalla said that the first 100 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine are being sold to the Indian government at a “special price” of Rs 200 per dose, after which prices would be higher.

The Indian government gave emergency authorisation to the Oxford University-AstraZeneca, but on the condition that SII doesn’t export the shots to ensure that vulnerable populations in India are protected.

He said that the company also has been barred from selling the vaccine on the private market. “We can only give (the vaccines) to the government of India at the moment,” Adar Poonawalla said.

Adar Poonawalla added that the Serum Institute was in the process of signing a larger contract with Covax for 300 million-400 million doses of the vaccine.

Covax is an initiative created to ensure equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines set up by the World Health Organization, vaccines alliance GAVI and CEPI, a global coalition to fight epidemics.

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The total coronavirus cases climbed to 96,77,203 with 32,109 new infections being reported in a day, while the death toll crossed to 1.4 lakh with 391 new fatalities.

At 3,96,729, the Covid-19 active caseload in India is now below the 4-lakh mark.

As per Union Health Ministry data on Monday, total discharged cases in India stands at 91,39,901 with 39,109 new discharges in the last 24 hours.

India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5.

It went past 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, and surpassed 90 lakh on November 20.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative total of 14,77,87,656 samples have been tested for COVID-19 up to December 6 with 8,01,081 samples being tested on Sunday.

The Union health ministry had said earlier that the country does not need to vaccinate all of its 1.3 billion people if it manages to break the transmission of coronavirus disease.

Meanwhile, the Serum Institute of India have become the first indigenous company to apply to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) seeking emergency use authorisation for the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine in the country citing unmet medical needs due to the pandemic and in the interest of the public at large.

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Now, the total cases in the country stands at 93,92,920.

With 496 deaths in a day, the toll has mounted to 1,36,696. The country has 4,53,956 active cases of coronavirus, the Union health ministry said on Sunday.

In the past 24 hours, 42,298 patients were discharged across the country, taking the total recovered patients to 88,02,267.

The total number of samples tested up to Saturday stood at 13,95,03,803, including 12,83,449 samples tested yesterday itself, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Sunday.

The ICMR has also approved a “simple and fast method for Covid-19 testing, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said on Saturday. This method can not only increase the number of RT-PCR tests, but can also bring down costs, the CSIR said.

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla said that the Pune-based pharma company is in the process of applying for emergency use authorisation of ‘Covishield’ in the next two weeks.

‘Covishield’ is the experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca in affiliation with the SII.

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Earlier ICMR and SII have further collaborated for the clinical development of development of COVOVAX, developed by American company Novavax and upscaled by SII.

SII said it has enrolled 1,600 participants in India for late-stage trials of AstraZeneca’s candidate, and also plans to seek regulatory approval to run late-stage trials for Novavax vaccine.

Covishield is the AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine candidate and is the most advanced in human testing in India. SII and ICMR is planning to pursue early availability of the shot in India.

The ICMR had funded the clinical trial site fees for Covishield. SII and ICMR are currently conducting mid-stage clinical trials of the shot at 15 centres across India.

The two frontrunner coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc and Russia have shown positive results and are said to be effective by over 90% against COVID-19. Now Moderna is also getting closer to releasing the data on its late-stage trials of the corona vaccine candidate.

Meanwhile, in India, experts have said that Pfizer news may not be of much use in India as the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine needs storage at extreme cold temperature (-70 degree Celsius) and arranging such cold chains would be a huge logistical issue.

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The total coronavirus cases mounted to 83,64,086 and the deaths have climbed to 1,24,315 with the virus claiming 704 lives in the last 24 hours in the country.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate was recorded at 1.49 percent. So far, there are 5,27,962 active cases of COVID-19 which comprises 6.31 percent of the total caseload.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 11,42,08,384 samples have been tested up to November 4, with 12,09,425 samples being tested on November 5.

Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer (CEO) of Pune-based pharmaceutical company Serum Institute of India (SII) said that the covid vaccine is likely to be available in the country by January 2021 provided approvals from regulatory bodies are in place and only if its proven immunogenic and efficacious.

The SII is working in collaboration with British- Sweden pharma major AstraZeneca to produce the potential covid-19 vaccine Covishield.

The CEO of the world’s largest drug manufacturing firm also said that the firm is in talks with the government over the pricing of the vaccine and assured that it will be available at a reasonable price.

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The announcement came as part of the collaboration between eh SII, Gavi, Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This brings the total now to be delivered by the partnership to up to 20 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

It will accelerate the manufacturing and delivery of up to an additional 10 crore doses of future safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines, priced at a maximum of US$ 3 or Rs.250 per dose for low- and middle-income countries in 2021

The SII is the leading vaccine manufacturer in the world and has partnered with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for producing the Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the scientists of the Oxford University.

The announcement by the SII came days after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the AstraZeneca reached an agreement with the SII to supply 1 billion doses of Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine to low and middle-income countries. Johnson announced this during his speech at the 75th high-level debate of the United National General Assembly (UNGA) on Saturday.

The Oxford vaccine, being produced under brand name of Covishield is now in Phase-III of clinical trials in a multi-national vaccine development programme. The SII is conducting the trials in India.

Serum Institute of India is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold globally (more than 1.3 billion doses). Vaccines manufactured by Serum are accredited by the World Health Organization, Geneva and are being used in approximately 170 countries across the globe.

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