According to Parsi Junction, a community newsletter, the Serum Institute of India (SII), founded by the business tycoon Cyrus Poonawalla, has reportedly agreed to reserve 60,000 vials of their COVID-19 vaccines for the Parsi Community. This news drew further speculation when Poonawalla’s son Adar Poonawalla, CEO of SII took to Twitter to reply to a tweet by fellow Parsi Entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala.
Screwvala tagged Adar and tweeted, "On a lighter note, Since Parsis are to be Extinct race (Though the average age of Parsis show otherwise) there is a lobby that as the vaccine does come in there will be a special quota under saving from extinction race..& why not if a Parsi is at the forefront of it."
On a lighter note 😊-since Parsi’s are to be an Extinct race 😊(though avg age of Parsi’s show otherwise) there is a lobby that as vaccine does come in there will be a special Quota under saving from extinction Race😊-&why not if a Parsi is at the forefront of it @adarpoonawalla
— Ronnie Screwvala (@RonnieScrewvala) July 26, 2020
Following this, Adar Poonawalla replied to Screwvala assuring him that there are ‘more than enough’ doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for the Parsi community. However, he did not mention any kind of quantity of the doses.
Yes, @RonnieScrewvala, we will keep more than enough for the community. Our production capacity of just one day will be enough to cover every Parsi on the planet...given the size of our community! https://t.co/qkCDrynMeW
— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) July 26, 2020
The request for this reservation of doses was originally made by the former Bombay Parsi Panchayat (BBP) chairman Dinshaw Rusi Mehta. Mehta requested the SII to set aside these vaccine vials in their first batch for the Parsi community.
The SII has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by Oxford University. Last week, the SII said that the high prevalence of the virus in Mumbai and Pune will help test the efficacy of the vaccine. The firm said that by the end of August, between 4,000 to 5,000 people in Pune and Mumbai will be injected with the vaccine as part of trials that are scheduled to last over two months.
As per media reports, the firm is planning to manufacture 70 million doses per month initially, subject to regulatory approvals. It has also been reported in the media that phase-1 of the clinical trial is over and phase-2 and 3 are being held in Austria.
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