The world is in a race to get a Covid-19 vaccine into the market. There are more than 155 vaccine trials for the virus going on across the world, 15 of which have entered the first phase of trials.

Should a vaccine come out in the near future, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon Ltd. believes young people and health workers should be given first priority to be vaccinated.

“Who will receive the first supply of vaccines? Young people n health workers ought to get first priority. The elderly, those with co-morbidities n children should not be exposed to the vaccine until safety risk is established,” she tweeted.

In response to a user about vaccinating the needy, Shaw explained, “An accelerated vaccine does not have safety established so it’s better to not expose the elderly n vulnerable to it so fast.”

This isn’t the first time Shaw has stressed the need to identify who should be vaccinated first.

Last week in an interview, she said, “Epidemiologists have to work out the model as to what is the minimum number of people who need to be vaccinated when the vaccine comes out. We cannot obviously vaccinate 1.3 billion people in such a short time because there won’t be enough vaccine. Even if the vaccine producers were going to make a billion doses, it cannot be done in one month.”

“(At the) Maximum you can produce is 80 million to 100 million doses per month. So, which are the first 100 million people that will be vaccinated? Those are the kinds of planning we need to do now.”