New Delhi: India has slashed exports of the Covid-19 vaccine as its own fight against the coronavirus has worsened, and has shocked vaccination drives in many other countries.
The Government of India now has about 4 million doses made daily by the Serum Institute of India, a private company that is one of the world’s largest producers of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
That’s horrible for the dose India can get. Infections are at their peak every day, more than twice as many as two weeks ago. And the Indian vaccine drive has been sluggish, with less than one percent of India’s approximately 1.4 billion people living far below the rates in the United States, Britain and most European countries.
A few weeks ago, India was a major exporter of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and was using it to influence South Asia and the world. More than 70 countries, from Djibouti to Britain, have received vaccines made in India, with a total of more than 60 million doses. From mid-January to March, few days have passed between large shipments of vaccines leaving India.
But the size of its shipments abroad has fallen sharply in the last two weeks, according to data from India’s External Affairs Ministry. And Kovacs, a program set up by donor agencies to buy vaccines for poorer countries, said Thursday that it had told those countries that there would be “delays in March and April due to an increase in demand for Covid-19 vaccines.” India. ”
The Indian government has not publicly commented on what is happening, and will not be reached by the New York Times for this article. But health experts say the explanation is clear: as another wave of infection hits home, India is opening its doors, holding on to a vaccine that has not developed but is being produced on its soil.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is heavily nationalist, has regulatory control over how much vaccine dose can be exported at any given time, and India seems to be moving in the same direction as the European Union, which is moving in the right direction. . Export.
Adar Poonawala, the chief executive of the Serum Institute and the family of a billionaire who runs the company, finds himself in a very awkward position. The Serum Institute has a vested interest in keeping its word to its foreign customers and AstraZeneca and in fulfilling the agreements entered into by it.
But Shri Poonawala has been careful not to say anything negative about the pressure that Shri Modi or the Modi government is putting on him. Instead he has appealed for patience.
“Serum Institute India F India has been directed to prioritize India’s vast needs and balance the rest of the world’s needs with it,” he said. Mr. Poonawala tweeted in late February. “We’re trying our best.”
According to a deal struck last year with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford scientists, a serum organization based on scattered campuses in the city of Pune has agreed to vaccinate middle- and low-income countries. Who developed his vaccine.
Wealthy nations such as Canada, Saudi Arabia and Britain also rely on serum institute doses due to the issue of production of other AstraZeneca facilities in Belgium and the Netherlands, making the company more serious for the global supply chain of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Unlike the United States, Britain and EU member states, India has so far exported more doses of the vaccine to its own people.
India, with a larger population than the entire continent of Africa, and millions of people living below the poverty line – like many other countries receiving vaccines from various suppliers around the world – are completely dependent on their own supply of vaccines. The country produces another Covid-19 vaccine, developed by India Biotech, an Indian company, although the global demand for that vaccine is much lower than the demand for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Ol Levier Wouter, a professor of health policy at the London School of Economics, said that with many poor countries already having the potential for widespread vaccine access by 2023 or 2024, an extended pause on India’s exports could push that date forward. Is studying the global vaccine supply chain.
“It is in the interest of all countries to work together to vaccinate the world,” he said as new forms spread.
“Many countries in the world, especially the poorest countries, count on India,” Mr Wouters said. “Vaccine nationalism hurts us all.”
Nepal, one of the poorest countries in Asia and India’s front door, had to halt its vaccination campaign. It relied heavily on doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine made at the Serum Institute, but Nepal stopped vaccinating on March 17 due to its low national reserves.
The head of the immunization department in the Ministry of Health of Nepal, Dr. Zalak Sharma said the country had received a donation of one million doses from the Indian government and had paid 80 per cent of the price for the next two million, but it did not seem to make a difference.
“We could not get the vaccine on time,” Sharma said.
He added that India’s export sanctions would “affect us and the world.”
Britain finds itself in a similar situation. A few weeks ago he received five million doses from the Serum Institute, but waited more than five million weeks.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief aide, Eddie Lister, was using his trip to India this week in an effort to secure Britain’s promised supplies, officials said. Mr Johnson is due to visit India next month, and some diplomats here have described his trip as a high-profile mission to secure millions more doses.
At the same time, the serum organization has told Morocco, Brazil and Saudi Arabia to expect delays in shipments, Reuters reported. According to Moroccan news media, Morocco is now scrambling to secure more vaccines from Russia’s Sputnik V or to obtain doses from other sources.
The production capacity of the serum organization has always been central to the scheme of vaccinating the poor. A spokesman for AstraZeneca would not disclose exactly what percentage of its vaccine’s global supply of serum produces serum, but a recent AstraZeneca statement called the contribution “significant.” The serum has committed to producing a third of the total 3 billion doses, which AstraZeneca said it would produce by the end of 2021, although it seems impossible to meet the timeline.
The connection between the serum, which started as a serum ranch made from horse blood, and the Ox Xford-Astrazeneca resulted in the world’s cheapest Covid-19 shot: for only $ 2. Vaccines developed by Pfizer and Modern, by comparison, cost more and carry heavier cold storage. Need, increases the difficulty.
Serum is also playing a huge role in the Kovacs program for poor countries. Documents from the World Health Organization show that the Indian company was expected to allocate 240 million doses by the end of June.
But data from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and a statement from Kovacs on Thursday show that vaccine drives around the world are likely to be further delayed.
According to the international program, the serum organization has so far supplied covacs with 28 million doses. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs showed that 18 million doses were sent abroad under Kovacs, indicating that about 10 million doses of India’s domestic vaccination also came from the program, indicating India as eligible for participation.
In contrast, about 34 million doses have been provided in commercial deals and 8 million donations have been made by the Government of India as part of its vaccine diplomacy.
On April 1, India will increase eligibility and allow anyone aged 45 or over to be stripped.
K, a health policy expert from the non-profit Public Health Foundation of India. “It’s a fluid situation,” Srinath Reddy said. “But at the moment, given that the vaccine supply and covid situation is dynamic, I think the Indian government is taking a break and saying let’s get caught up in the stocks.”
Benjamin Mueller from London, Bhadra Sharma from Kathmandu, Nepal and Ida Alami from Rabat, Morocco contributed.
