New Delhi: Amid vaccine shortage in the country, leading American pharmaceutical major Pfizer has shown interest in making its vaccine available in India, a top government official said.
“We are engaged with Pfizer as they’ve indicated the availability of a certain volume of vaccines in the coming months, possibly in July. They’ve requested indemnity against liability to all the nations. We are examining this request. There is no decision as of now” said Dr VK Paul, member NITI Ayog and chair of the National Expert group on vaccine administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC).
During a press briefing of the health ministry, he said that domestic vaccine manufacturers are in the process of ramp up their vaccine capacity. Bharat Biotech is ramping up its capacity and we are expecting that the capacity will reach to 10 crore a month in the coming months. Serum Institute of India is also ramping up its capacity to over 11 crore from 6.5 crore currently.
“It is reassuring that we are on the downswing of the second wave, and it will be sustained if restrictions open up systematically as the time comes” he said.
Meanwhile, Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, health ministry briefed that the overall COVID-19 related recoveries are now exceeding the number of cases being reported on a daily basis. The recovery rate has increased from 85.6% to 90% now, it’s a positive indication. As many as 25 states have reported decline in active cases since last week.