Parsis decline offer to jump vaccine queue

The Pune-based Parsi firm Serum Institute, owned by Cyrus and Adar Poonawala, wanted to give priority to members of the Parsi community in supply of the Covishield vaccine it is producing to eliminate the effect of the Covid-19 virus.

Cyrus made an offer to Bombay Parsi Panchayat to reserve over 60,000 doses of the vaccine (only a half day's production) for the Parsi community in India, but the Panchayat is reported to have politely declined after industrialist Ratan Tata intervened that "we are Indians first, Parsis later and so we will wait for our turn."

The vaccine's Parsi connection does not end with Poonawalas' firm. Its glass vials were supplied by another Parsi firm Schott Kaisha, owned by Rishad Dadachanji. Tata Motors, another Parsi company, lined up its trucks to transport the stocks from the institute and the vaccine batches were airlifted by Go Air, another Parsi venture of Jeh Wadia. The vaccines were also stored in refrigerators produced by Godrej, while dry ice used for transport was produced by another Parsi, Farooq Ddabhoy.