A fire accident at the vaccine manufacturing facility of Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune on Thursday, which claimed 5 men and women, will not influence the production of the Covishield vaccines.
Adar Poonawalla, CEO, SII, stated there would be no loss of Covishield production due to several production buildings kept in reserve to deal with such contingencies. The 5 workers who lost their lives have been not workers of SII, but building workers working on the web-site. Two of the dead have been from Uttar Pradesh, two from Pune and a single from Bihar.
The Covishield Covid-19 vaccine is getting manufactured from this campus at an adjacent constructing.
The fire was reported in portion of the constructing close to the BCG vaccine line. SII is expanding its Covishield Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing in this Manjari campus and this facility is vital to SII’s expansion plans to make one hundred million doses a month from this month onwards. SII has a stockpile of 70 million vaccines and the stock was secure.
The fire broke at the SEZ at the Manjari campus at about 2 pm and may possibly have been brought on by welding activity, district administration has indicated. The fire began on the second floor and spread to the third, fourth and fifth floors of the constructing. Poonawalla initially stated there was no loss of life, but he later confirmed that 5 building workers had died.
The victims have been all labourers working on the fifth floor of the constructing, exactly where building work was in progress, Maharashtra’s wellness minister Rajesh Tope told media persons. They have been rescued and taken to government Sassoon Hospital but died in the hospital, Tope stated.
Fifteen fire tenders have been pressed into service and the key portion of the fire was brought beneath handle by about 4.10 pm, but the fire was nevertheless raging in some components of the constructing.
Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar has ordered an enquiry into the fire at the SII campus. There is a lot of concern across the nation about security and influence on the production of Covid-19 vaccines, but the organization had assured him that there was no harm to the vaccines and and this portion of the campus was secure, Pawar stated.