Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw asked about the promised 70 million doses per month are being deployed and suggested that a timetable of supplies be made public so that “people can patiently wait their turn”.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Founder and Chairperson - Biocon, has questioned the Centre on the status of vaccine production in the country.

In a tweet addressed to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) on May 11, Mazumdar-Shaw said she was “very concerned” about the short supply of vaccines and expressed the need for “better transparency to avoid suspense”.

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She also questioned about where the promised 70 million doses per month are being deployed and suggested that a timetable of supplies be made public so that “people can patiently wait their turn”.

Very concerned about why vaccines are in such short supply. Can we please know where the 70 million doses are being deployed every month? @MoHFW_INDIA We need better transparency to avoid the suspense. If a timetable of supplies is made public people can patiently wait their turn

— Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (@kiranshaw) May 11, 2021

Mazumdar-Shaw’s tweet comes as India is embattled in a ferocious second wave of COVID-19, even as the country-wide vaccination drive crawls at a slow pace due to supply shortages.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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COVID-19 2nd Wave | Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw questions Centre on vaccine production, asks for transparency

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s tweet comes as India is embattled in a ferocious second wave of COVID-19, even as the country-wide vaccination drive crawls at a slow pace due to supply shortages.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw asked about the promised 70 million doses per month are being deployed and suggested that a timetable of supplies be made public so that “people can patiently wait their turn”.

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