News

India’s Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech to treble Covid vaccine output to 210 million doses a month by September/October

Published

2 years ago

2021/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, May 27:

India’s Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech will treble their Covid-19 vaccine output to 210 million doses a month by September or October from 74 million doses at present, the Government said here on Thursday.

Dr VK Paul, head of India’s Covid-19 task force, said that indigenous Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing firm Bharat Biotech started with around nine million doses production capacity. The Hyderabad-based pharma company will ramp it up to around 100 million doses per month by September or October this year, he added.

Dr Paul, who is also NITI Aayog member, said that the Serum Institute of India (SII) of Pune in Maharashtra is also ramping up production of its Covishield vaccine from 650 million doses per month at present to around 110 million doses, also by September or October.

The SII is world’s largest vaccine-manufacturing company by volume. Serum and Bharat Biotech are the only two companies in India that have received nod from government to produce the Covid-19 vaccines.

However, Panacea Biotech in collaboration with Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF has begun the production of ‘Sputnik V’ Covid-19 vaccine in India.

Sputnik V was registered in India under the emergency use authorisation procedure on April 12, 2021.

According to the union health ministry, India’s cumulative vaccination coverage has exceeded 202.6 million as of May 27.

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News

Stay on course and don’t go back to the past – Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy

Published

3 hours ago

2023/03/24

Priyan

Former Governor of the Central Bank delivering the keynote address at a high profile Webinar hosted by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka today (24) said that Sri Lanka must implement the structural reforms proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) without relaxing like in the past or else we will be in a deeper economic mess.

The webinar was titled ‘What is next for Sri Lanka in the wake of the IMF programme’

News

Sustainable economic development goals cannot be achieved unless attention is paid to mitigating climate change – Sagala Ratnayake

Published

3 hours ago

2023/03/24

Priyan

President’s Senior Adviser on National Security and Chief of Presidential Staff Sagala Ratnayake said sustainable economic development goals cannot be accomplished without taking steps to mitigate climate change.

He said this while participating in the 10,000 sapling planting program organized by the LEO Youth Vision 2048 Club and the LEO Club at the Royal College, Colombo on Thursday (23rd).

This program was organized in view of President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s birthday, which is today (24), and the required plants were distributed to the main schools of the Colombo District.

News

SF claims thousands of police and military personnel leaving

Published

16 hours ago

2023/03/24

Thilina Walpola

By Saman Indrajith

Thousands of police and military personnel had left the services recently as they did not want to carry out illegal orders, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka told Parliament yesterday. According to the war-winning army commander 200 policemen have resigned during the past two months and 25,000 soldiers have left the army during the last two years.

“We urged the law enforcement and military officials not to follow illegal orders. We will reinstate them with back pay,” he said.

Fonseka also urged the President and the government MPs not to take people for fools.

“Sri Lanka owes 55 billion dollars to the world. Ranil’s plan is to borrow another seven billion during the next four years. So, in four years we will owe 62 billion to the world.

Ranil and his ministers ask us what the alternative to borrowing is. These are the people who destroyed the economy and society. They must leave. Then, we will find an alternative and develop the country,” he said, adding that the IMF loans had made crises in other nations worse.

“Ranil says that by 2025, we will have a budget surplus as in Japan, Germany and South Korea. These countries are economic power houses, and this comparison is ludicrous.”