@the_news_21
Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla has said that India will face vaccine shortage till July. In an interview with Financial Times, Poonawalla revealed that production of vaccines is expected to increase from July to 100 million doses a month – currently it is in the range of 60 – 70 million.
He further said that the company had not increased capacity earlier due to lack of orders, highlighting that severe vaccine shortage would continue through July. “Everybody really felt that India had started to turn the tide on the pandemic,” said Poonawalla to Financial Times, adding that the authorities did not expect to confront a second wave back in January, when cases had started declining.
Defending his firm, Poonawalla told the newspaper that SII had been maligned by politicians and critics over vaccine shortage.
“I’ve been victimised very unfairly and wrongly,” he told the newspaper, adding that he had not boosted capacity earlier because “there were no orders, we did not think we needed to make more than 1billion doses a year”.
