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The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, suffers a fire in a building that was under construction, leading to at least five deaths. This incident will reportedly not affect the production of their COVID-19 vaccine.
The Mayor of Pune city, located in the southern Maharashtra state, Murlidhar Mohol states that five bodies were found in the aftermath of the incident, discovered by firefighters. The victims were most likely construction workers, he further clarifies, the cause of the fire has yet to be determined as well as the extent of the damage.
Adar Poonwala, CEO of the Serum Institute of India also said in an interview that he was “deeply saddened” by the incident. He also further states that vaccine manufacturing will experience no repercussions due to having separate facilities capable of producing them.
The fire affected only the new facility that was under construction, with their older facilities being fully functional, also with a stockpile of an estimated 50 million doses.
