India: world's largest vaccine producer announces delivery delays
An employee loads a shipment of vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India at Mumbai airport.
AFP - INDRANIL MUKHERJEE
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
India is the world's largest vaccine producer, and many countries depend on Indian doses for their Covid-19 vaccination campaign.
The main private laboratory in the country has however announced that it will not be able to fulfill orders placed by several countries on time.
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With our correspondent in New Delhi,
Sébastien Farcis
Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine producer, has just written to authorities in Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Brazil to inform them that the doses of the
AstraZeneca vaccine
they have purchased will arrive late.
These three countries have so far received only 15 to 35% of the doses purchased.
According to the Indian company, this is due to the fire that occurred in January on its campus, which is surprising, because the boss of the company had himself assured that this accident would not have an impact on production.
This delay could also be caused by the fact that the Indian manufacturer has to
supply doses to the United Kingdom
, which was not planned, to compensate for the delays of the other AstraZeneca factories.
Finally, health pressure is intensifying on India, which has experienced a significant second wave of Covid-19 contamination in recent days, and New Delhi could seek to reserve more vaccines.
So far India has exported more than 59 million doses, which is more than what has already been administered to the Indian population.
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India
Vaccines
Coronavirus