By: Shubham Ghosh
Indian vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) has revealed that it had to dump 100 million doses of their Covid-19 vaccine after they went past their expiry dates.
The firm, based in Pune in the western state of Maharashtra, also stopped producing the Covishield vaccine last December because of low demand, chief executive Adar Poonawalla on Thursday (20) said. Covishield accounts for more than 90 per cent of the doses that have been administered in India.
SII, which is the world’s biggest vaccine maker, has been making the local version of AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria shot.
India started giving booster doses to healthcare and frontline workers, and those above 60 with comorbidities, in January this year and later all adults were jabbed by the same.
In July, free booster doses or precaution doses were given to all adults for 75 days to mark the South Asian country’s 75 years of Independence. According to India’s health ministry, the country has so far administered 298 million booster doses.
“The booster vaccines have no demand as people now seem fed up with Covid,” Poonawala told reporters on Thursday.
“Honestly, I’m also fed up. We all are.”
The SII CEO said on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network that the company had around 100 million doses of Covishield in stock and they expired last month.
The vaccines have a shelf life of nine months.
“Going forward, when people take a flu shot every year, they may take a Covid vaccine along with it,” Poonawala added. “But in India, there is no culture of taking a flu shot every year, like in the west.”
He also said the SII had concluded trials for the Covid vaccine Covovax as a booster dose and expects the vaccine to get approval in two weeks.
It has also partnered with American biotech company Novavax for an Omicron-specific booster, Poonawalla said.