PM Modi’s whirlwind tour to three Cities

_{^{After Zydus and Bharat Biotech, PM visits Serum Institute in Pune}}

Pune : Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s whirlwind tour recently to three cities to review latest position of Vaccine development exhibits his concern over providing COVID-19 Vaccines to the Indian citizens at the earliest.  He took stock of COVID-19 vaccine development by three firms recently – biotechnology companies Zydus Cadila in Ahmedabad, Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad and Serum Institute    of India in Pune.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Hyderabad on Saturday as part of his three-city tour to take the stock of COVID-19 vaccine development. The Covaxin vaccine being developed by Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech is undergoing phase III clinical trials.He then proceeded to Bharat Biotech’s facility located at Genome valley, a life sciences cluster about 20 km from the AF base, sources said. Bharat Biotech is developing the vaccine in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV). PM flew back to the national capital after a stopover in Pune, where he has visited the Serum Institute of India (SII), which has partnered with pharma giant AstraZeneca and the Oxford University for the vaccine.

Earlier in the morning, Modi visited Zydus   Cadila’s  plant situated at Changodar industrial area near Ahmedabad city and reviewed the progress made by the company       so far in terms of  development of vaccine against coronavirus.

Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), its Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla said that he was amazed by the Prime Minister’s knowledge about vaccines and vaccine production.Poonawalla said, “We have built the largest pandemic-level facility in Pune and a new campus in Mandri. Prime Minister is  knowledgeable about vaccines and vaccine production. We were amazed”, said the pharma giant chief.

 Prime Minister later tweeted and said “Had a good interaction with the team at Serum Institute. They shared details about their progress so far and their plan to further ramp up vaccine manufacturing.