A day after a massive fire at vaccine-maker Serum Institute of India's Pune facility, in which five people died, CEO Adar Poonawalla said there was no damage to any vaccine as none were being produced at the site.
"This was a brand new facility. It was for the future production of BCG and Rotavirus. No actual vaccine was actually being produced there, so there was no damage to any vaccine," Mr Poonawalla said, addressing a joint press conference with Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The Serum CEO added that there was no damage to Covishield, the coronavirus vaccine being used in India's Covid inoculation drive. "Where Covishield is manufactured and stored, no damage was done to that," he said.
Nearly 10.5 lakh beneficiaries have received anti-coronavirus shots under the countrywide COVID-19 vaccination exercise as on date, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday. In a span of 24 hours, 2,37,050 people were vaccinated across 4,049 sessions. A total of 18,167 sessions have been conducted so far. On the testing front too, India continues to register growing numbers, the ministry said.
India added 14,545 coronavirus cases today, placing its overall number at 1.06 crore cases, the Health Ministry's data showed. The number of fresh infections reported on Sunday were 4 per cent lower than on Thursday. In this period, India reported 163 deaths linked to the virus, taking the total number of fatalities to 1,53,032.