On September 16, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) allowed the Serum Institute of India (SII) to restart its phase two and three clinical trials for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
The Chief Executive Officer of Pune-based pharmaceutical company, Serum Institute of India (SII), Adar Poonawalla on Saturday asked whether the Indian government have Rs 80,000 crores over the next year to buy and distribute the COVID-19 vaccine to everybody in India.
It is to be noted that the Serum Institute of India is all set to begin phase three trials of the Covishield Vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University at Sassoon General Hospital in Pune.
"Quick question; will the government of India have 80,000 crores available, over the next one year? Because that's what Ministry of Health needs, to buy and distribute the vaccine to everyone in India. This is the next concerning the challenge we need to tackle," Adar Poonawalla tweeted.
"I ask this question because we need to plan and guide, vaccine manufacturers both in India and overseas to service the needs of our country in terms of procurement and distribution," he added.
In a recent interview, Poonawala had said that for everyone in the planet to get access to COVID-19 vaccine is going to take at least till 2024.
On September 16, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) allowed the Serum Institute of India (SII) to restart its phase two and three clinical trials for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
This comes after the pharma major submitted the recommendations of the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), UK and DSMB India and requested permission to restart enrolment in the subject clinical trial of the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
AstraZeneca had earlier paused the ongoing trial of nCoV19 coronavirus vaccine (recombinant) as a volunteer had developed an unexplained illness.
It was reported that the clinical trial had been put on hold in the US, UK, Brazil and South Africa. Following this, the country's top drug regulator had on September 11 ordered the SII to suspend any new recruitment in phase 2 and 3 clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine till further orders.
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