Serum Institute restarts manufacturing of Covishield vaccine as Covid cases surge

Serum Institute of India (SII) has restarted manufacturing of the Covishield vaccine, the company's CEO Adar Poonawalla said on Wednesday. Serum Institute, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold globally, had stopped producing the coronavirus vaccine due to a lack of demand.

In the last few weeks, Covid cases have surged across the country, prompting the authorities to advise people to take booster doses. Amid the spike in Covid cases, the requirement for vaccine doses may increase.    

Poonawalla said the company will make 6-7 million doses available in the next 90 days. This comes just a day after he advised all the elders to take the Covovax booster dose. Covovax is manufactured by Serum Institute in partnership with Novavax, a biotechnology company based in the United States.

In a tweet on Tuesday, SII CEO said: "As COVID cases have been rising again with Omicron XBB & its variants, it can be severe for the elderly. I’d suggest for the elderly, mask up & take the Covovax booster which is now available on the COWIN app. It is excellent against all variants & is approved in the US & Europe."

Today, he said six million booster doses of the Covovax vaccine are available.

Earlier this month, the Serum Institute wrote a letter to the Union Health Ministry seeking the inclusion of Covovax on the CoWIN portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults. News agency PTI on Monday reported that the Health Ministry had approved the inclusion of Covovax on the CoWIN portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults and it was likely to be available at a price of Rs 225 per dose plus applicable GST.

Covovax can be administered to those who have already been vaccinated with Covishield or Covaxin. Last month, the Covid Working Group headed by Dr N K Arora also recommended to the Health Ministry for the inclusion of the vaccine on the portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults who have been vaccinated with two doses of either Covishield or Covaxin.

The Serum Institute was among the first two vaccine manufacturers who rolled out Covid vaccines in India. Pune-based Serum produced Covishield in partnership with UK's AstraZeneca while Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech rolled out Covaxin.