Partly True: The Serum Institute of India would be able to produce vaccines for COVID-19 by May 2020 at the rate of 5 million doses a month

By: Annie Priya
May 12 2020

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Oxford University COVID vaccine team are going for clinical trials, but to produce the claimed quantity of doses, the trials need to be a success.According to the news coverage by India Today on 22 April 2020, the chief executive officer of the Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla, has collaborated with the University of Oxford to produce a vaccine for COVID-19. He has said that his institute's team members are working closely with Oxford professor Dr Adrian Hill for the vaccine and that they could produce five million doses a month and scale that up to 10 million after six months if the trials worked well in around two weeks. As per the statement released by the Oxford COVID vaccine team, they would start the process of vaccine evaluation in their first human studies from 22 April 2020, but the Serum Institute of India had said that to produce in the quantities they claim they can, the trials need to be a success on humans. The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has said in its list of frequently asked questions about COVID-19 that there is no vaccine and no specific antiviral medicine to prevent or treat the novel coronavirus currently. Although the Oxford COVID vaccine team are prepared for clinical human trials, they have to be successful to verify whether the Serum Institute Institute will produce five million doses a month. The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19 including symptoms, prevention and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organisation or your national healthcare authority.