New Delhi: Asserting that the Central government is reaching out to the foreign vaccine manufacturers, chairman of India’s national task force on Covid-19 Dr VK Paul on Thursday said that talks with Pfizer are at the final stage.
“Pfizer has informed us that they have spared vaccines for India. Our talk with Pfizer is progressing well. Most probably we will get Pfizer vaccines from July,” said Dr Paul while addressing a press conference in New Delhi over the Covid-19 situation in India.
On a question over Pfizer’s demand for indemnification, Dr Paul said that the American giant has asked for the same.
“We are discussing all issues including indemnification as asked by them. We are examining the request in the interest of the people. However, no decision has been taken yet,” said Dr Paul.
Pfizer has a vaccine efficacy of 91.3 per cent against Covid-19 disease. In a recent meeting between Health ministry officials and Pfizer representatives, it was said that the Pfizer vaccine has high effectiveness against the India-dominant variant.
Pfizer has reportedly told the government that its vaccine had been proven suitable for everyone over 12, and can be stored for a month in cold storage facilities with a temperature range of 2-8 degrees Celsius.
Dr Paul said that discussion is on with Zydus, BioE, Sputnik, Zenova among others.
Referring to the vaccine availability issue, Dr Paul said that 51.6 crore doses are presently available with the government. “Our two domestic vaccine manufacturers are also ramping up. The vaccine production capacity of Bharat Biotech was 90 lakh per month initially and we believe by September-October it will go up to 10 crores per month. Similarly, the capacity of Serum Institute was 6.5 crore and it is likely to go up to 11 crores by September-October,” said Dr Paul.