Covishield Readies For Roll-Out? Rahul Kanwal Speaks Exclusively To Adar Poonawalla

So as you can see, these are fully automated lines. Growing, Bosch, a lot of manufacturers use German and Belgian and other European automated manufacturers where the vials are washed at high speed, then they're heated at a very high temperature going through this tunnel that you can see in front of you, and then after that it's filled. So the containers in which the vaccine ends up in is very clean. And then of course you saw how it was being screened and checked for particulate matter to ensure the highest levels of safety. And you know, we have tried to remove human intervention as much as possible so that, as you can see over here, you can only put your hand in with a glove through these openings here. This is an isolator line so that you never come into contact, no human being ever comes into contact. As you can see, you put your hand through a glove, so you won't come into contact with the product directly.

So you know, whether it's a chimpanzee virus or a killed virus, live attenuated virus, different technologies that different vaccine manufacturers are working on, there are bound to be some side effects. That's the case with pneumonia vaccines, measles vaccines, rotavirus vaccines. But this should not alarm us in any way that vaccines are unsafe, or that you're going to get sick. A very small percentage of people react badly to vaccines, but there's nothing to be worried about.

A little fever, a little headache, little sore throat maybe, but that lasts for about two days and you take a paracetamol and that goes away. That's been proven in thousands of people globally now who have taken our vaccine, and no severe side effects beyond that have been noticed.

No, no, see. After investigation of these cases, it was concluded by the health minister and the principal investigators also that these were non-vaccine related issues that that individual had. There were some other incidences abroad also where it was clearly ruled out that after a few weeks someone developed some issue and it was clearly not vaccine related. Everybody has concluded that, and the final report has also been concluded on that matter.

No, we've got the highest level of vigilance with the Drug Controller of India which is monitoring any side effect, no matter how small or big it is, and we are ensuring that no risk to human life is going to be there as a rollout of these vaccines, which is definitely happening at a rapid pace which is required. And we need to be united in this. You know, it can't just be that a manufacturer takes the risk. Even the public have to have some faith and understand that this is required because until we vaccinate everybody, nobody is safe.

Correct, good question. So let me put that in the right context. I mentioned that this is something the government can look at because even in the US and other countries, we're looking at these laws being invoked by the government to protect manufacturers only during, and only during the time of a pandemic, where a massive rollout of vaccines is going to happen. And as a result, you know, there are bound to be some bona fide and unmodified non-bona fide cases. And if we see the courts intervening and stopping vaccination programs pending investigations, that's the real risk that we're talking about. And we don't want that to happen. To protect the government programs from being paused or looked at, if you remember there were some incidences where the trial was stopped for about a month when there was a case abroad, and you know that really puts us on a back step in being able to reach the target of being able to vaccinate that critical mass in a population to build up that immunity that is required. So these lawsuits have the ability to slow down and delay these campaigns, which is the only reason why we suggested to the government that perhaps only during the pandemic rollout of these vaccines, indemnity should be granted to the vaccine manufacturer.