Life Could Resume Normally By Oct, 2021 Says Adar Poonawalla

A couple of days ago, Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO, Adar Poonawalla said that the Covid-19 vaccination drive could likely begin in India by January 2021. SII, which is testing and manufacturing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, expects to get its Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) by the year-end.

“By this month-end, we might get an emergency licence, but the actual licence for wider use might come in at a later date. But, we are confident that if the regulators give a nod, India’s vaccination drive can start by January 2021,” said Adar at The Economic Times Global Business Summit, adding that Indian citizens could get vaccinated by October 2021, following which normal life could resume.

“Once 20% of India gets the coronavirus vaccine, we can hopefully see the confidence and sentiments coming back, and by September-October next year hopefully there will be enough vaccines for everyone and normal life can return,” he said.

Last week, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC), which is scrutinising applications by three firms for EUA of their Covid-19 vaccines in India, asked SII and Bharat Biotech for additional late-stage safety and efficacy data from their ongoing clinical trials. The expert committee noted that the SII has only “submitted safety data till November 14”, and that the principal investigator of its study, Dr Sushant Meshram, who is involved in the trials, did not attend the meeting, as per news reports.

The interim results of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine trials, published in The Lancet, shows that the vaccine protects against symptomatic disease of 90% in those given a half, and then a full dose. The vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus viral vector that can’t cause disease in humans and expresses the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. This means the vaccine delivers the spike protein genetic code into vaccinated people’s cells, which then produce the protein, teaching the immune system to recognise and attack the virus.