Covid-19 vaccine could be ready by December: Serum Institute's Adar Poonawalla

In an interview with English news channel NDTV, Poonawalla on Wednesday said, "If we don't go for an emergency license, our trials should be over by December and then we can maybe we can launch in India in January subject to the UK trial also being completed which it's on the verge on being completed."

"If the UK in the next two weeks were to unblind their study and share the data and be confident that it's safe, then we can, after two-three weeks, apply to the Indian regulator to look at a possible emergency license if that's what the government of India wants," he added.

The SII chief further said, "That review could take about two-three weeks I imagine and then you can have a vaccine by December but all these would have to happen and I don't want to venture a guess whether that would happen or not happen because it's not my place to do so - that's for the health ministry officials to decide."

The SII is working on multiple Covid-19 vaccines including the one developed by Oxford University, named Covishield in the Asian country.

At a time France and Germany are getting into the anti-Covid-19 lockdown mode again, the Novel Coronavirus tally in India on Thursday went past the 80-lakh mark with the reporting of 49,881 new infections in the last 24 hours.

As per the latest update by India's Health Ministry, the country has reported 517 deaths apparently due to the infection in the last 24 hours.