India needs Rs 80,000 crore for COVID-19 vaccine distribution in 2021: Serum Institute of India

The Executive Director added that India would further have to ensure adequate power supply that could help maintain the temperature required to keep the vaccine safe in the remote areas of the country.

"It is a huge challenge, and all the stakeholders have to work together to take up the challenge of such large scale operation," he said at NASSCOM's webinar on 'Vaccine Trials - Optimizing the Supply Chain', emphasizing on the need for a clear communication from the Central government.

Dr. Ravetkar said, "Everything starts with government getting into action. IT-enabled supply chain management should be established as at Serum Institute we produce 1.6 million doses annually. So, we can roll out this vaccine fast. He said that it will be easier for all manufacturers to plan their production"

Alluding to the menace of counterfeiting, he said, "We have experience in counterfeiting and in this Covid-19, this is bound to happen as there is a huge demand for it. We have to establish machinery and system to control this."

India has eight Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including three indigenous vaccines, under different stages of clinical trials which could be ready for authorization in near future.

It includes AstraZeneca and Oxford university developed and Serum Institute of India manufactured Covishield, Covaxin by Bharat Biotech Limited, ZyCoV-D by Zydus Cadila and Russian vaccine candidate Sputnik-V.

The list also contains NVX-CoV2373 by SII, HGCO19 by Geneva, and two unlabeled vaccines-Recombinant Protein Antigen based vaccine by Biological E Limited-and Inactivated rabies vector platform by Bharat Biotech.

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