Covishield will save countless lives: Poonawalla on applying for emergency use authorisation

Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), which is manufacturing a Covid-19 vaccine, sought emergency use authorisation from India's drug regulator on Sunday.

“As promised, before the end of 2020, SII has applied for emergency use authorisation for the first made-in-India vaccine, COVISHIELD,” SII CEO Adar Poonawalla tweeted.

Asserting that the vaccine “will save countless lives”, he thanked the Government of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On November 28, Modi had visited the Pune facility of SII and reviewed the vaccine development programme.

The SII is producing 50 to 60 million doses and would scale it up to 100 million doses a month by January, 2021. The government has indicated that SII could make up to 300-400 million doses by July, 2021.