Pune, India – A fire at a building of Serum Institute of India (SII) has killed 5 according to Indian newspapers.
Minutes ago the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared his grief for the families of the deceased and the injured.
Anguished by the loss of lives due to an unfortunate fire at the @SerumInstIndia. In this sad hour, my thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives. I pray that those injured recover at the earliest.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 21, 2021
SII CEO Poonawalla also offered his condolences to the families of the departed and thanked the Pune city police and fire departments for their efforts.
We have just received some distressing updates; upon further investigation we have learnt that there has unfortunately been some loss of life at the incident. We are deeply saddened and offer our deepest condolences to the family members of the departed.
— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) January 21, 2021
This facility is a few minutes drive away from the vaccine production facility according to Indian news media, and will not affect the Covid-19 vaccine production according the CEO Adar Poonawalla if SII.
I would like to reassure all governments & the public that there would be no loss of #COVISHIELD production due to multiple production buildings that I had kept in reserve to deal with such contingencies at @SerumInstIndia.
Adar Poonawalla
The Serum Institute of India is producing millions of doses of the Covishield coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. The company manufactured the 100,000 doses of vaccine gifted to Maldives from India.
