July 24, 2020: The production of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine named Covidshield - one of the frontrunner COVID-19 vaccine candidates in the world has begun in India.

The initial estimates suggest at least one billion doses of the vaccine will be produced in India, which would make the country the largest producer of the COVID-19 vaccine on the planet.

As per the latest developments, the Oxford-Astrazeneca joint-collaboration vaccine is now being manufactured on a large scale at the Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune, Maharashtra. The early production has commenced in order to meet the commercial requirements for Phase 3 of the vaccine’s clinical trials.

The results of the oxford vaccine published earlier this week in The Lancet shows an acceptable safety profile and produced increased antibody response to fight the novel coronavirus. Officially known as the chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), the Covidshield has also shown to induce a marked increase in effective T-cell responses— an attribute that can ensure longer-term immunity.

Suresh Jadhav, Executive Director of the SII, revealed the company intends to create 2-3 million (20-30 lakh) doses of the vaccine by the end of August 2020. And by the end of this year, the target will be to produce at least 300 million (30 crore) doses, said Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, Chairman of the Poonawalla Group (which includes the SII).