Serum Institute of India (SII) is not thinking about exports of its COVID-19 vaccine doses at this moment as India may face crisis for jab until July.
Amid a steep rise in Covid-19 cases in India and reports of shortage, the Indian central government paused exports under its "Vaccine Maitri" programme.
SII CEO Adar Poonawalla told NDTV in an exclusive interview that the situation will stand at least till July.
"There is no clarity on exports and we also right now feel that we should not look at exports for two months during these cases. Maybe in June-July, we could start looking at small exports starting again. Right now, we are going to prioritise the needs of the nation first," he said.
The SII CEO also expressed his hope that the organisation would be able to provide 100 million doses per month of the Covishield vaccine after July.
Mr Poonawalla recently reached out to US President Joe Biden in a tweet, urging him to lift the embargo on the export of raw materials needed for the production of vaccines in India.
"The US government responded through the media. We've seen reports of them saying they acknowledge and understand the issue. They are looking into it but (there is) no opening up as yet for the raw materials that they know very well exactly that are required...," he said.
He added that this problem would not impact prices or manufacturing of Covishield in India.
"No, this will not affect our price because we can find alternative suppliers to the US, but that is just taking more time. And that will affect the stockpiling of Covovax, not Covishield, luckily," he said.
