Does India hold the key for global access to the coronavirus vaccine?

Countries of the world are in a race to develop the first vaccine, and are also pre-booking potential vaccines. Many countries are also building vaccine alliances.

Russia claims its vaccine will be available this week. On Tuesday India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will travel to Moscow to have a wide ranging discussion on the vaccine alliance. Moscow sounds certain that an agreement will be struck. Three days ago, Russian officials talked about setting up a production facility in India.

“Now the focus is on the fact that Russian production capacities will be initially used only for the Russian market. We are organising the production in India and other countries for the foreign market. Due to the perfect work of the Gamaleya institute, we see interest of not 20, not 30, but 40 countries now”, Russian welfare fund head, Kirill Dmitriyev.

Russia the first with a vaccine

Russia was the first country to claim that it has a vaccine that works, and is now aggressively promoting the Sputnik V.

Recently, a video showed Russian defence minister taking a jab of the vaccine. Moscow still says the vaccine is safe and it works. However, scientists around the world say the trials in Russia were too small to prove the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

Two days back, Russia went public with the data. Published by medical journal the Lancet, it says that early tests show signs of an immune response. Experts are now calling for larger and randomised trials to test Sputnik V.

In this case, an alliance with India would certainly help Russia. India is the third largest vaccine maker in the world, and India currently has 10 vaccine candidates in development.

According to a report - the US, Britain, the European Union and Japan have so far secured about 1.3 billion doses of vaccines, with an option to snap up 1.5 billion more.

Even before a vaccine has been proved effective, more than two billion doses are already gone.

India steps in

South Asian countries are looking to India for help, and with its manufacturing prowess, India can get access to multiple global frontrunners. Some supplies of the Oxford vaccine will be reserved for India.

The Serum Institute of India that has rights to the Oxford vaccine has agreed to supply 50 percent of its stock to India. The Oxford vaccine is among the most promising candidates right now. According to the Serum Institute, it has an 80 per cent chance of working.

Reportedly, India is also keeping an eye on the Moderna vaccine. Also, India is developing its own vaccine called Covaxin. On September 7, it began the second phase of its clinical trials. Besides these two - India is watching eight other vaccine programmes, including German and Israeli candidates.

India has also pledged 15 million dollars to Gavi, the vaccine alliance created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

About 70 per cent of the vaccines used around the world are made in India. 7 billion people in the world need a vaccine for the coronavirus, and the world cannot make a vaccine without India's help.