Current Covid variants mild, senior citizens can take booster dose: SII CEO

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawala on Saturday said that current Covid-19 variants are mild and not severe and senior citizens can take booster doses as a precaution.

While addressing the mediapersons in Pune, Adar Poonawala said, "We have produced 5-6 million doses as stock, current demand is zero in all hospitals. Current variants are mild and not severe. Senior citizens can take booster doses as a precaution".

He further stated that Covovax is also being provided in the United States of America and Europe.

"Covovax is for the age group (12 and above). We are providing Covovax in the USA and Europe. It is the only Covid vaccine made in India which is approved in USA and Europe but demand is very small," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, UNICEF in a new report on immunisation said that the public perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined during the COVID-19 pandemic in 52 out of 55 countries studied.

The State of the World's Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination reveals the perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined by more than a third in the Republic of Korea, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and Japan after the start of the pandemic.

In the new data, collected by The Vaccine Confidence Project and published by UNICEF, China, India and Mexico were the only countries studied where the data indicates the perception of the importance of vaccines held firm or even improved. In most countries, people under 35 and women were more likely to report less confidence about vaccines for children after the start of the pandemic.

Under the nationwide Vaccination Drive, India has so far administered 220,66,31,979 crore Covid vaccine doses (95.21 cr second doses and 22.87 cr precautionary doses), of which 3,647 doses were administered in the last 24 hours as per the data available on April 21.