India vies to become global Covid vaccine hub |
The Indian Biotechnology industry was worth more than $65 billion before the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced. Now, as Indian pharma companies take the lead in developing, manufacturing to becoming a key supplier of the vaccine, India is sure to play a critical role in the global inoculation program against the Coronavirus. Many countries have requested India, either on a government-to-government basis or by directly placing orders with the vaccine developers who are manufacturing the doses in India. The other option for most low and middle-income countries is to source vaccines through the GAVI-COVAX alliance, where all the partner countries who manufacture the vaccine would give part of the doses to this alliance to make vaccines available to 92 such countries that fall in this category. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 9th January had reiterated the role India intends to play in order to "save humanity" by providing doses of the two Indian-manufactured vaccines that have been cleared for emergency use, Covishield and Covaxin, to the rest of the world. Besides the neighbours, barring Pakistan, Brazil, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, South Africa have made official announcements seeking vaccines from India. Sources say the government will accord priority to all its neighbours, be it Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, or even Afghanistan, in vaccine distribution. India is facing massive demand for Covid vaccines not just from the neighbourhood but from other countries as well.
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