Fire Breaks Out at World's Biggest Vaccine Maker in India

The company’s top brass have said COVID vaccine production isn’t impacted.

The fire broke out at Terminal 1 gate of Serum Institute of India in Pune. It continued to rage at the fourth and fifth floors of SEZ3 building inside Terminal 1.

Ten fire tenders have reached the site of the mishap.

However, this mishap would not affect the production of the coronavirus vaccine, reported Reuters citing a source close. The site where the fire broke out, is an under-construction building at SII. The vaccine and vaccine manufacturing plant are safe, quoted ANI further.

The company is involved in producing COVID-19 vaccine Covishield – developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca – which has been given emergency use authorisation in India recently.

Adar Poonawalla's Serum Institute, which is the world's largest vaccine manufacturing company, has been the manufacturing site for locally produced Oxford COVID-19 vaccine 'Covishield'.

India has already rolled out a massive coronavirus vaccination drive under which two vaccines, Serum's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, are being administered to frontline health workers across the country.

SII has already manufactured 50 million doses of Covishield vaccine on at-risk funding. Overall, the vaccine giants aim to develop 3.2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines at its facilities in India. The company is ramping up capacity every week.