Coronavirus vaccine | Current production not enough, will take 4-5 years to vaccinate everyone, says Adar Poonawalla

“I still don’t see a proper plan on paper to do that [in India] beyond 400m doses. You don't want a situation with the vaccine where you have capacity for your country but you can’t consume it,” he noted.

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SII has partnered with five global pharma companies including AstraZeneca to produce 1 billion doses of its vaccine candidate – half of which it has pledged to India; besides partnering with Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute to manufacture the Sputnik V vaccine.

Stating that the commitment “far exceeded other vaccine producers”, he acknowledged the need to be optimistic.

As the biggest COVID-19 vaccine producer by volume, Poonawalla’s assessment “casts serious doubts” on politicians claims of a vaccine by October, and added to fears that large pre-orders from the United States (US) and Europe would leave others at the back of the line, the paper said.

SII presently produces 1.5 billion doses of polio, measles and influenza vaccines for 170 countries.

Poonawalla’s time estimation matches WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan’s prediction that the pandemic would take four to five years to be controlled.

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