Every country in the world is insisting on vaccination to prevent the coronavirus, but in the coming days, a major crisis on vaccination may arise. The United States has imposed a restriction on the supply of raw materials for the items used in making the vaccine.
Although this ban is not permanent, it may affect vaccine production in the next few years. The problem is even more complicated for the Novavax company's vaccine because the production of this vaccine depends entirely on the raw materials from the United States.
The CEO of Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which provides 80 percent of the vaccine to the world, has raised questions about the US ban. In a discussion session organized by the World Bank, Adar Poonawala raised this issue and said that due to US law, there may be a lot of hurdles in the coming days.
He said that the bags, filters, caps, and the items used in its packing are exported to make the vaccine. The highest production of these items in the world is in the US itself. Since the whole world needs a lot of vaccines at this time. Therefore, the United States has the ability to meet such a demand, but shortly before the United States has imposed a ban.
According to the CEO, in this time of the Kovid-19 pandemic where every country is moving with each other's cooperation. In such a situation, the Serum Institute of India is also producing vaccines day and night to meet the needs of many countries of the world, but the decision of the US can give great harm.
Currently, the vaccine has enough storage and raw material available, but it can be used only for the next few weeks. If the US does not withdraw this decision soon, it may have to reduce or stop vaccine production after a few weeks.
However, vaccination is currently underway in India with Kovishield and Kovaxin. Adequate storage already exists. Also, there is not much raw material used in their production, but due to the long-term ban, there can be problems.
According to the information, apart from the Serum Institute of India Kovishield, Novavax is also making a corona vaccine for the company in which raw materials coming from America are being used more.
Poonawalla said that he was in need of these items as he was the major manufacturer of the Novavax vaccine. If we talk about manufacturing vaccines for the whole world, then we may face problems with these important raw materials.
In fact, the Biden administration has announced the implementation of the Defense Production Act to speed up the vaccination program in the US. After this, vaccine production companies are raising questions about the export of raw materials.
Poonawala said that the Biden administration needed to discuss this. Poonawala said that Serum has sent 9 million doses of the Extrazeneca vaccine abroad in the last two months after India's vaccine was approved for emergency use.