India yet to get vaccines from the US under donation program

A month after the US announced it was donating 80 million anti-covid19 vaccines, countries such as Bangladesh, Taiwan and Pakistan have got consignments of US made vaccines, but India is yet to get its doses from the US.

Officials in New Delhi did not give a clear indication of how many vaccines India would get, or the timeline of their arrival in the country. There were some conversations ongoing on the matter, a person familiar with the matter said, when asked if there was any clarity on when the US made vaccines would be available in India.

The 80 million doses the US is donating comprise vaccines manufactured by AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson. India has been using the Oxford AstraZeneca developed vaccine for domestic inoculation along with domestically developed Covaxin to inoculate its people. Drug regulators also green-lighted Russia developed Sputnik vaccine and the Moderna vaccine recently. The Pfizer vaccine is yet to receive regulator’s clearance in India.

India is seen as one of the countries badly hit by the covid-19 pandemic with a brutal second wave sweeping across the country in April-May leading to thousands of deaths. The overall death toll has surpassed 400,000. Authorities have warned of a possible third wave of infections and have urged citizens to get vaccinated on the back of the discovery of some cases of the Delta “plus” variant in the country. It was the Delta variant that caused the second wave of infections bringing the country’s health infrastructure to breaking point.

On 3 June, US vice president Kamala Harris telephoned Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among other world leaders, to explain the Biden administration’s plans to donate 25 million of a possible 80 million doses of anti-covid-19 vaccines.

The US said 19 million vaccine doses were to be shared with COVAX—an international coalition under the World Health Organization aiming for the equitable delivery of covid-19 vaccines to poor countries. The rest was to be shared with “countries experiencing surges, those in crisis, and other partners and neighbours, including Canada, Mexico, India, and the Republic of Korea”, US president Joe Biden said in a statement that also recalled that he had previously stated that “by the end of June, the United States will share 80 million doses of our vaccine supply with the world”.

On 21 June, the Biden administration unveiled plans to donate the second tranche of 55 million vaccines—75% of which were to go to COVAX and the rest to be shared with countries that were seeing spikes in cases. A statement from the US government had then seemed to indicate possible delays. “Just like we have in our domestic response, we will move as expeditiously as possible, while abiding by US and host country regulatory and legal requirements, to facilitate the safe and secure transport of vaccines across international borders. This will take time, but the President has directed the Administration to use all the levers of the US government to protect individuals from this virus as quickly as possible,” the statement issued on 21 June said. “The specific vaccines and amounts will be determined and shared as the administration works through the logistical, regulatory and other parameters particular to each region and country,” the statement had then said.

While New Delhi is looking forward to receiving US vaccines, officials said India’s needs would only be met if domestic production was scaled up. This was one of the reasons why Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar made it a point to stress the importance of keeping supply chains open at meetings he had with US interlocutors in Washington while on a visit last month. India imports 200 different components for the manufacture of vaccines from the US and some 100 from Germany besides other countries. Live Mint