CEO of Serum Institute of India Adar Poonawalla shares video taking vaccine
Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla congratulated the nation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the beginning of the vaccination drive in India.
Poonawalla posted a video on Twitter where he is taking the Covishield vaccine, which is manufactured by his company.
“I wish India & Sri @narendramodi ji great success in launching the world’s largest COVID vaccination roll-out. It brings me great pride that #COVISHIELD is part of this historic effort & to endorse its safety & efficacy, I join our health workers in taking the vaccine myself,” Adar Poonawalla wrote on Twitter.
I wish India & Sri @narendramodi ji great success in launching the world’s largest COVID vaccination roll-out. It brings me great pride that #COVISHIELD is part of this historic effort & to endorse it’s safety & efficacy, I join our health workers in taking the vaccine myself. pic.twitter.com/X7sNxjQBN6
— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) January 16, 2021
Poonawalla had said that SII is not only aiming at providing vaccines to India but also to other countries.
According to SII, the government of India has already bought about 11 million doses of Covishield. It further plans to take another five to six crore doses by February. Around 100 people are expected to be vaccinated in each of the 3,006 centers across the country on the first day.
COVISHIELD has been developed by the University of Oxford and the British-Sweden pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. It is the first vaccine on which a scientific study has been published, based on phase 3 trials, and has been given authorization for emergency use in UK, Argentina, Mexico, and India.