Ever since the pandemic put a stop to the world, there has been a rat race to find the vaccine that can bring the world back to normal. There are hundreds of vaccines that are being developed in almost all countries of the world. While some like those being developed by Oxford University- AstraZeneca and BioNTech-Pfizer are in advanced stages of development and clinical trials, there are some Russian and Chinese vaccines that are said to be ready but one cannot completely rely on their claims. Closer home, there are a couple of companies that have relentlessly worked to develop a vaccine against the notorious virus but they will take a while before they reach clinical trial stages.
The vaccine talk brings us to a pressing question – when will Indians get their dose of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus? The frontrunner here is Adar Poonawala-led Serum Institute of India(SII), the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines. At the current capacity, SII can produce about 1.5 billion doses of vaccines in a year. Equipped with the top-notch infrastructure, Adar Poonawalla is all set to produce one billion doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. With his potential to produce the vaccine against COVID, India can expect to get its requirement of the vaccine, to be able to vaccinate at least the vulnerable groups first.
