Coronavirus vaccine: Serum Institute said it will produce 100 million additional doses of COVID vaccine
Bengaluru:
The Serum Institute of India will produce up to 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for the poorest countries, including India, next year, as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Vaccine Alliance GAVI have doubled their funding, the company said on Tuesday.
The additional funds will help Serum boost manufacturing of vaccine candidates from AstraZeneca Plc and Novavax Inc, which will be delivered under the COVAX program in the first half of 2021.
The collaboration extends a first agreement signed in August by Serum, GAVI and the Gates Foundation for 100 million doses at a maximum price of $ 3 each.
Total funding provided is now $ 300 million, and the expanded collaboration also provides an option for the provision of additional doses as needed.
The plan says COVAX, co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and GAVI, aims to deliver 2 billion doses of vaccine globally by the end of 2021. More than 150 countries have joined the plan, though that China and the United States did not register.
The global tally of deaths from COVID-19 topped one million on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally.
India, which leads the world in the daily average number of new infections reported, saw its number of coronavirus cases climb to 6.15 million on Tuesday.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
