United States President Joe Biden on Wednesday said that the Quad nations will produce at least 100 crore Covid-19 vaccines in India to boost the global supply by the end of 2022, PTI reported. Biden made the remarks while speaking at the United Nations.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also known as the Quad, is a strategic dialogue between the US, India, Japan and Australia.
“We are working with partner nations, pharmaceutical companies, and other manufacturers to increase their own capacity and capability to produce and manufacture safe and highly effective vaccines in their own countries,” Biden said.
Biden also said that the United States is helping South Africa strengthen its manufacturing capacity so that more than 500 million Johnson and Johnson doses are produced for the African continent next year.
The US tops globally in vaccine exports as it has provided 160 million doses to more than 100 countries till date. Biden has also started shipping out Pfizer doses through COVAX – a World Health Organization-backed initiative that aims to provide equitable distribution of vaccines across the world.
Now, the US is buying another half billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine to donate to the low and middle-income countries around the world.
“This is another half billion doses that will all be shipped by this time next year,” Biden said.
He added that the donations will amount to 1.1 billion doses once they send out the new Pfizer doses.
Biden urged other high-income countries to deliver more vaccines to the world. In line with this vision, he announced a partnership between the US and the European Union to work on promoting vaccination across the world.
Till date, 5,99,01,49,629 people have been vaccinated across the world, of which 32.39% are fully inoculated, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University.
India’s COVAX commitment
Ever since the vaccines were rolled out in India in January, the country was deemed to be a key supplier of vaccines through COVAX to the world’s poorest countries. However, India had to halt the export of vaccines in April due to the devastating second wave of the coronavirus.
The Narendra Modi government had sent nearly 6.6 crore vaccine doses to 95 countries under its “Vaccine Maitri” initiative till the export was halted. But the government had then faced criticism as several states faced shortage of vaccines amid the second wave of the pandemic.
However, in May, the Bharatiya Janata Party said that 84% of the coronavirus vaccines exported by the Centre were part of commercial and licensing liabilities of the two manufacturers, Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech.
In June, World Health Organization chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan had said that the halt on vaccine export had severely impacted inoculation in 91 countries due to shortage in supplies.
Now, India will once again start exporting vaccines from October. However, the government said that vaccinating Indians will be the main priority.
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