Tag: Serum Institute of India

India Exporting 50% More Jabs Than Those Used at Home, Not at the Expense of People, Says Health Min

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In a bid to become the pharmacy of the world, especially during the times of Covid-19, India has exported over 5.84 crore doses of indigenous vaccines to 70 countries, as against 3.48 crore jabs it has administered across the country since the inoculation drive began.

Junior health and family minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday provided the data of 583.85 lakh exported doses.

Meanwhile, the Centre has placed a new purchase order with the Serum Institute of India (SII) for the supply of 10 crore doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, each costing Rs 157.50, including GST, according to official sources.

The HLL Lifecare Limited, a public sector undertaking, has issued the supply order on behalf of the Union health ministry on March 12 in the name of Prakash Kumar Singh, Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Pune-based SII.

The cost of the 10 crore doses would be borne by the health ministry under the budgetary allocation for the purpose. The expenditure for the earlier orders of the vaccines was funded through the PM Cares Fund, the sources said.

India has approved two vaccines against COVID-19 — Covishield, manufactured by the SII, and the indigenously-developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech — for restricted emergency use in the country.

“Vaccines are not being sent to other countries at the expense of people of India. Experts at highest level and a committee of Government are maintaining sensible balance about it…30,39,394 people were vaccinated yesterday. We have touched a total figure (vaccination) of 3 crore,” ANI quoted Vardhan as saying in Rajya Sabha.

Vardhan’s response came after the Congress raised objections over the central government’s move to export the Covid-19 vaccines to foreign countries. The party said that the government should not export vaccines without immunising the entire population of India.

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After Power Grid, China Hackers Also Targeted Indian Vaccine Makers for ‘Competitive Advantage’: Report

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A Chinese state-backed hacking group has in recent weeks targeted the IT systems of two Indian vaccine makers whose coronavirus shots are being used in the country’s immunisation campaign, cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma told Reuters.

Rivals China and India have both sold or gifted COVID-19 shots to many countries. India produces more than 60% of all vaccines sold in the world.

Goldman Sachs-backed Cyfirma, based in Singapore and Tokyo, said Chinese hacking group APT10, also known as Stone Panda, had identified gaps and vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure and supply chain software of Bharat Biotech and the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine maker.

“The real motivation here is actually exfiltrating intellectual property and getting competitive advantage over Indian pharmaceutical companies,” said Cyfirma Chief Executive Kumar Ritesh, formerly a top cyber official with British foreign intelligence agency MI6.

A new study has also revealed that computer networks of at least 12 Indian state-run organisations, primarily power utilities and load dispatch centres, have been targeted by Chinese state-sponsored groups since mid-2020 in an attempt to inject malware that could cause widespread disruptions. According to the study by Recorded Future, a US-based company that monitors the use of the internet by state actors for cyber-campaigns, NTPC Limited, the country’s largest power conglomerate, five primary regional load dispatch centres that aid in the management of the national power grid by balancing electricity supply and demand, and two ports were among the organisations attacked.

Ritesh said APT10 was actively targeting SII, which is making the AstraZeneca vaccine for many countries and will soon start bulk-manufacturing Novavax shots.

“In the case of Serum Institute, they have found a number of their public servers running weak web servers, these are vulnerable web servers,” Ritesh said, referring to the hackers.

“They have spoken about weak web application, they are also talking about weak content-management system. It’s quite alarming.”

China’s foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

SII and Bharat Biotech declined to comment. The government-run Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, with whom Cyfirma said it had shared its findings, had no immediate comment.

The U.S. Department of Justice said in 2018 that APT10 had acted in association with the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

Microsoft said in November that it had detected cyber attacks from Russia and North Korea targeting COVID-19 vaccine companies in India, Canada, France, South Korea and the United States. North Korean hackers also tried to break into the systems of British drugmaker AstraZeneca, Reuters has reported.

Ritesh, whose firm follows the activities of some 750 cyber criminals and monitors nearly 2,000 hacking campaigns using a tool called decipher, said it was not yet clear what vaccine-related information APT10 may have accessed from the Indian companies.

Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN shot, developed with the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research, will be exported to many countries, including Brazil.

U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE said in December that documents related to development of their COVID-19 vaccine had been “unlawfully accessed” in a cyberattack on Europe’s medicines regulator.

Relations between nuclear-armed neighbours China and India soured last June when 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a Himalayan border fight. Recent talks have eased tension.



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