Faridabad (India) (AFP)

Machines are running 24 hours a day at India's leading syringe producer Hindustan Syringes, which wants to be fully prepared before a coronavirus vaccine is released.

The race for the vaccine against the Covid-19 disease is holding the world in suspense.

The medical equipment to administer it will also be a vital issue, experts say.

Hindustan Syringes, one of the world's leading manufacturers of injection devices, already manufactures 700 million auto-disable syringes - to prevent reuse - and expects to reach a billion by 2021.

"Even if 60% of the world's population is vaccinated, this means that four to five billion syringes will be needed," Hindustan Syringes executive director Rajiv Nath told AFP.

"Making syringes involves sophisticated automation", he continues, interviewed at the group's factory in Faridabad in Haryana (North).

"We can't build capacity in two or three months. It's not as simple as making personal protective equipment, we have to build up a stock right away."

- Large-scale vaccination -

Even as scientists explore other options, nasal or oral, for vaccinations, the demand for syringes is expected to rise sharply.

Governments, faced with shortages of equipment - masks for example - at the start of the crisis, are now focusing on filling their stocks.

Much of the demand is expected to be met by factories in India and China.

"We should have sufficient capacity for the first wave of vaccinations which will affect priority groups," Prashant Yadav, health supply specialist at Harvard Medical School, told AFP.

But "when we achieve large-scale vaccination in late 2021 or 2022 and the estimates for dose demand exceed ten billion, syringe supply will become a constraint."

The World Health Organization (WHO) does not expect widespread vaccination before mid-2021.

The coronavirus has killed nearly 900,000 people worldwide.

Currently, more than thirty vaccine candidates are in clinical trials on humans.

Trials for one of the most advanced, developed by the British University of Oxford and the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca have just been suspended after the onset of a disease in a volunteer.

For the moment, Unicef ​​has ordered 140 million syringes from Hindustan as part of the Covax system for pooling orders and distribution of future vaccines and also supplying poor countries.

Mr. Nath is hoping for more orders.

Usually, India buys half of the manufacturer's output with the rest exported, but has yet to place an order for the coronavirus vaccine.

© 2020 AFP