Recent surge in India's Covid cases major contributor to rising global tally: Soumya Swaminathan, WHO's chief scientist

India's recent surge in Covid cases is a major contributor to the rising numbers in the world, WHO's chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said.

The WHO is alarmed by the rise of numbers in India, along with Indonesia and Nepal, Swaminathan said while speaking at Global Bio-India 2021, an event organised by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).

Two other regions — Europe and Latin America — are other major hotspots currently, she added.

However, Swaminathan commended the Indian pharma industry for quickly adapting to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

"Overall, India has been a positive story — whether you take diagnostics or the vaccine, the industry has stepped up to fill in the gaps in the system," she added.

Currently, there are over 360 pharma companies the world over that are working in various stages to develop the vaccine.

SII to produce 100 million doses a month from April
Suresh Jadhav, executive director (ED) of the Serum Insititute of India, said that SII will scale up to create 100 million doses a month from April, from around 50 to 60 million currently.

Speaking about the challenges SII faced during the early stages of creating the vaccine, Jadhav said that every company had to take stock of its current capacity and facilities to ascertain if it can carry out the production.

"When the company thinks about starting a new product, they have to think about scale-ups, infrastructure and equipment, and the availability of raw materials, which was a concern during the lockdown as transport was restricted," he said.

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech's ED Krishna Mohan said at the same event that the country's indigenously developed Covaxin was awaiting the interim analysis. Mohan added that in the next two weeks, the vaccine's efficacy towards the South African and Brazillian strains should also be published.