New Delhi

The world's largest produceer of COVID and other vaccines Serum Institute of India (SII) needs more raw materials to ramp up the production of Covishield vaccine to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in India and across the world.

In a rather unprecedented move that signals the exigency of the situation, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla directly asked the President of the USA to life ban on export of raw material that go into making the vaccines so that other countries could also make these and the battle against COVID can be won.

Poonawalla tweeted, "Respected @POTUS If we are truly one to defeat this virus, then on behalf of the vaccine industry based out of America, I would like to humbly request you to ban the export of raw materials from America. Remove so that vaccine production can be increased. Your administration has the details of this."

Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details. 🙏🙏

— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) April 16, 2021

His tweet came following a legal notice sent to SII by Oxford-AstraZeneca to the Serum Institute of India over delayed supplies.

Poonawala had earlier said that SII would need about Rs 3,000 crore to optimize its Covid-19 vaccine production capacity.

The vaccine manufacturer hopes that it will be able to increase the production of Covishield to 110 million doses per month from June onwards.

SII has already given 100 million doses to India and about 60 million doses to other countries.

Poonawalla has asked countries asking for the Covishield vaccine to wait till his production house meets the needs of India and also the pre-booked orders.

Poonawalls has even been messaging world leaders directly responding to their messages of thanks for helping their countries out of the difficult pandemic situation.

The SII had signed an agreement of supplying 200 million doses of the vaccine to Covax, a body supported by the World Health Organization. However, the supply has been captured by the rich nations and due to extreme pressures from the countries seeking the vaccines, SII’s supply to some countries has got delayed.

However, this programme has been hampered by the rich nations hogging the supply. This made the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speak of the “shocking and expanding disparity in the global distribution of vaccines.”

Poonawalla had told media persons that the US restrictions on export of raw materials virually means ban on vaccine.