A fire accident that occurred at the Serum Institute of India’s (SII) facility in the state of Maharashtra has claimed the lives of five people.
After the fire broke out, four others were evacuated from the building in the SII’s Manjari premises.
SII is manufacturing the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield.
The vaccine manufacturer said it would not affect the production of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccination, Reuters quoted a government official as saying.
SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said on Twitter: “I would like to reassure all governments and the public that there would be no loss of Covishield production due to multiple production buildings that I had kept in reserve to deal with such contingencies at Serum Institute of India.”
According to sources, the affected plant is a kilometre away from the Covishield manufacturing unit.
TIMESNOWNEWS reported that four people were evacuated from the fourth and fifth floor of the SEZ 3 building after a fire broke out supposedly due to an electrical fault.
The blaze at the SII plant is now under control.
The company, which licensed the vaccination, was also planning to start stockpiling up to 50 million doses a month of Novavax’s vaccine candidate from around April.
