Centre rubbishes Poonawalla's claims that no additional Covid-19 vaccine doses were ordered

The Centre on Monday opposed media reports that claimed the Centre did not place orders for the Serum Institute's Covid-19 vaccine Covishield amid a tussle between Adar Poonawalla's company and the government.

“I’ve been victimised very unfairly and wrongly,” he told The Financial Times on Sunday, adding vaccine production was not ramped up because “there were no orders, we did not think we needed to make more than 1 billion doses a year”.

Poonawalla, who is now in London after facing threats over vaccine shortages across the country, said it was the government and not the company that was responsible for this.

Retaliating against Poonawalla's claim, the Ministry of Health said, " It is clarified that 100% advance of Rs 1732.50 cr was released to Serum Institute of India (SII) on 28.04.2021 for 11 crore doses of Covishield vaccine during May, June and July, and was received by them on 28.04.2021. As on date, against the last order of 10 crore doses for supplies of Covishield vaccine, 8.744 crore doses have been delivered till 03.05.2021... Hence to say that fresh orders have not been placed by Government of India is not correct."

The release by the Health Ministry called the claim baseless.