Serum Institute founder Cyrus Poonawalla to keep some vaccine aside for Parsis | Economic Times

New Delhi | Mumbai: Serum Institute of India (SII) founder Cyrus Poonawalla has agreed to set aside 60,000 doses of the yet to be developed Covid 19 vaccine for fellow Parsis, according to a community newsletter.The newsletter, Parsi Junction, reported that Poonawalla acceded to the request of former Bombay Parsi Panchayat (BBP) chairman Dinshaw Rusi Mehta, who asked for reserving atleast 60,000 vials for the Parsi community in the first batch. “We are a micro minority and every Parsi is required to be saved and healthy..At present, we are only 60,000 in numbers and 40 Parsis have died of Covid, ” Mehta said in a whatsapp message to Poonawalla.A text message sent by ET to Adar Poonawalla (CEO of SII) did not elicit a response. An SII official said perhaps the comment was made in passing and and it was too early to talk of such things.Poonawalla’ son and SII CEO Adar too took to twitter to say that ‘more than enough’ doses will be kept for the community. Responding to a tweet from media entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala, the younger Poonawalla said: “Our production capacity of just one day will be enough to cover every Parsi on the planet...given the size of our community.”SII has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the Oxford vaccine candidate for Covid-19 . In an interview with ET last week, Adar Poonawalla had said his company, subject to regulatory approvals, planned to initially manufacture 70 million doses per month and then ramp this up to 100 million doses.