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India’s vaccine diplomacy sets the pace for the global community
Using a new EU rule, Italy this month banned large pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca from shipping some of its coronavirus vaccine doses to Australia as it feared its own promised supplies would not be available. In the days leading up to this move, the EU faced a very noisy battle with the UK over UK vaccine exports to the EU and vice versa. Months earlier, the US, then led by Donald Trump, had rigged its own pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna to deliver the first supplies of vaccines to the US before exporting to other nations.
From the beginning, the coronavirus pandemic has seen many countries and their leaders react in a rather selfish way, often taking care of themselves at the expense of other nations. For example, the US has reserved enough doses to vaccinate its entire population twice. But the United States is not alone in displaying extreme forms of vaccine nationalism. As the pandemic spread to various parts of the developing world, including Africa, Asia and South America, developed nations were buying all the doses of vaccine expected to be produced in the first few months, if not years, leaving the rest. of the world adrift. fend for yourself.
Research published in January by the Duke Global Health Institute showed that wealthy nations, with just 16 percent of the world’s population, had grabbed 60 percent of the world’s supplies, enough to vaccinate their entire population multiple times, leaving 84 percent of the world’s population struggling for options.
Only once Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, teamed up with the World Health Organization to develop Covax, a program that ensures equitable distribution of vaccines around the world, poor countries without the means to produce their own vaccines. They were given a choice, rather than having to wait for rich nations to finish vaccinating their entire population first.
Yet India’s approach to the pandemic and its international dimensions has been unique almost from the moment it got vaccinated. It was on January 16, almost a month after several other nations had started their vaccination campaigns, that India started its own program, which was labeled the largest in the world as it aimed to vaccinate 300 million people. for August.
Just four days after its own campaign was launched, India sent two planes carrying some 250,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine to Bhutan and the Maldives, launching its ambitious vaccine diplomacy program, or “vaccine maitri” in Hindi. The government also announced that it would immediately supply free vaccines to all its neighbors in the region except Pakistan.
Since then, virtually every day, India has sent vaccines to some of the world’s smallest and most remote nations. Indeed, India has supplied vaccines to at least 50 percent of the world’s least developed countries and one-third of the small island developing states. The social media accounts of the leaders of most of these nations have highlighted the arrival of “Made in India” vaccines at their airports and their gratitude to India.
In the 55 days after the first shipment to Bhutan and the Maldives, India supplied nearly 60 million doses of vaccines to 71 countries. Of these, more than 8.1 million doses were offered free of charge, while 16.5 million were delivered as part of the Covax initiative.
India’s example has prompted other nations to follow suit and send vaccines to countries in need, primarily to strengthen diplomatic ties and grant a significant favor. For example, China announced in February that it would offer 10 million doses to Covax and was preparing to supply additional doses to other countries. In early March, it said it had shipped vaccines to 28 countries, mostly in Asia and Africa.
Last week, as part of the first Quadrilateral Security Dialogue leaders meeting, in which the leaders of the US, India, Japan and Australia participated, it was decided that these four nations would jointly supply at least 1 billion of doses of vaccines to Asia and India. -Pacific region.
On virtually every day, India has sent vaccines to some of the world’s smallest and most remote nations.
Ranvir S. Nayar
Meanwhile, Covax has also made progress. On February 24, the first doses of its vaccines were received in Ghana, marking the global launch of an ambitious cooperative plan that involves supplying 2 billion doses by the end of 2021.
It is time for the rich nations of the EU and the US to join the vaccine diplomacy campaign with heart and wallet. Until now, even though they have been involved in financing and supplying vaccines to various nations, their efforts pale to insignificance in the face of the needs of developing nations as well as the size of the economies of rich countries and how much more could they do to help the world beat the pandemic.
India has shown the way. Now is the time for the world to do the same.
- Ranvir S. Nayar is editor-in-chief of Media India Group.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Arab News.
