No increase in demand for boosters yet: Poonawalla

Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of vaccine maker Serum Institute of India, said on Monday that less than 30% of the eligible Indian population has taken booster doses, and that he isn't seeing any surge in demand for the precautionary shots in the backdrop of increasing Covid cases in China and elsewhere.

"I have still not seen a surge for boosters. We have offered it (vaccine) to all hospitals and clinics but there has been a lukewarm response, not even 100,000 people per day are taking booster shots," Poonawalla said in an interview to ET. "That number should go up."

People in the know told ET that the government is holding meetings with vaccine makers including Serum Institute on preparedness and finding ways to boost the number of people taking the precautionary doses.


According to the CoWin platform of vaccination, around 2.2 billion doses of vaccines have been administered in India so far, of which 220 million were precautionary or booster doses. More than 80% of people have taken Serum Institute's Covishield, followed by Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and Biological E's Corbevax.