Back‘Made in India’ Covid vaccines better than Pfizer, Moderna: SII's Adar Poonawalla
Poonawalla had earlier this week said that the Centre's decision of allowing all adults to take the Covid-19 booster dose has made the country better prepared to deal with any future wave that may come
PremiumThe “Made in India" Covid-19 vaccines have been able to provide better protection against the coronavirus than mRNA shots like Pfizer and Moderna, claimed Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Wednesday.
“The Covid-19 vaccines which have been made in India are providing more protection against the disease than mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna," Poonawalla was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
"It's good that vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna are not introduced in India, because in countries like US people have taken second and third booster dose and still many are getting infected with Corona but in India, our vaccines have given good protection," he added.
Further, he informed that India has exported Covishield – manufactured by his company – to more than 80 countries so far.
"We have exported Covishield to more than 80 countries and 10 crore doses so far. Now, the demand for Covid vaccine has been reduced due to declining cases," he added.
Poonawalla had earlier this week said that the Centre's decision of allowing all adults to take the Covid-19 booster dose has made the country better prepared to deal with any future wave that may come.
However, he appealed to the government to reduce the gap between the second and booster dose to six months from nine months.
"The uptake (for precaution dose) right now is a bit slow as we have a rule that you have to wait for nine months between dose two and dose three. We have appealed to the government and the experts, who are having discussions regarding the matter, to reduce this period to six months," Poonawalla said.
He noted that reducing the timeframe would give "real relief" to the people who want to travel abroad, stating that all across the world, the gap between a second dose and booster shot is six months or less.
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