PUNE: At least five people were killed in a fire that tore through India’s COVID-19 vaccine producer Serum Institue of India in Pune on Thursday.
“Four people were evacuated from the building but when it came under control, five bodies were found by our jawans,” Pune Mayor Murlidhar Mohol told the Indian news agency.
“It is not going to affect the production of the COVID-19 vaccine,” a source at the Serum Institute told an international news agency, adding that the blaze was at a new plant under construction.
An official at the local fire station said that that six or seven firetrucks had reached the site, spread over 100 acres. “Thick smoke is hampering the work of bringing the fire under control,” the fire brigade added.
The complex, where the fire broke out, is a few minutes’ drive from the facility where the COVID-19 vaccines are produced, reports said. Eight or nine buildings are under construction at the complex to enhance its manufacturing capability.
“We are deeply saddened and offer our deepest condolences to the family members of the departed,” Adar Poonawalla, the firm’s CEO, tweeted. The SII is manufacturing millions of doses of a vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca for India and many other low- and middle-income countries.
The company is also getting ready to produce a vaccine being developed by the United States company, Novavax Inc.
Serum Institute is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, producing 1.5 billion doses a year. It makes vaccines against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, measles, mumps and rubella, which are exported to more than 170 countries.
