Fire breaks out at building under construction at Serum Institute of India in Pune.
Amid tight security, three trucks carrying the very first consignment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine left for Pune airport to be flown to 13 locations across the country today.
Covid-19 Vaccine Live Updates: The first Cargo flight with the vaccines will drop off the consignment at Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bhubhaneshwar while the second cargo flight will go to Kolkata and Guwahati.
The decision was taken at a meeting on Saturday in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the status of COVID-19 in the country and the preparedness of states and union territories for vaccination against the disease.
"India is a part of 'COVAX'. We will keep giving 50 per cent of everything we make to India and to COVAX at the same time. India has such a large population that we will probably end up giving the majority of those 50 million doses to India first," Poonawalla said.
"6 vaccines are in the clinical trial stage. And there are 3 vaccines in pre-clinical stage. Some of them may get licensed in coming weeks but we cannot foretell at this moment of time because licensing is the domain of the DCGA," Union Health Secretary said at a press conference.
The SII is the first indigenous company that has sought emergency approval for the vaccine developed along with global pharma giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
The SII stated that the volunteer was specifically informed by the medical team that the complications he suffered were independent of the vaccine trial he underwent.
Dr Lalwani said phase two and three of trial is expected to end within three months and after that a detailed report with all the data of the trial phase will be sent to the government.
AstraZeneca recently agreed to supply 400 million doses to the US and UK after reaching a licence agreement with Oxford University for its potential vaccine.
