Heightened vaccine diplomacy to neutralise negative perception

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 4

India will try to neutralise the adverse perception from the farm agitation with stepped-up Covid diplomacy. The Government will try to accommodate as many as possible of the 65 formal requests from countries for Covid vaccines, said officials.

At the same time, diplomats have been reaching out to their counterparts to explain the farm laws’ favourable effect on investments in agriculture. This aspect got reflected in the US State Department’s observations on the subject broadly favouring the intention behind the farm laws.

India is already manufacturing a UK-developed vaccine, which India has exported free as well as on a commercial basis. In fact, even low- income countries are seeing vaccines from India on a commercial basis, said officials.

A Russian vaccine, currently undergoing Phase 3 trials, could be in the market by April. Sputnik vaccine is expected to be distributed not only in Russia, but in many Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members too. Bharat Biotech’s vaccine is also in the end stage of Phase 3 trials and will be in the market once it gets regulatory clearances.

In addition, countries are interested in at least three more vaccines undergoing trials and the development of a second wave of vaccine.

India will be building on the goodwill it earned during the worldwide peak of the Covid epidemic last year when it supplied medicines, PPE kits and medical equipment to a large number of countries.

An empowered committee of top officials–secretaries from the Ministries of External Affairs, Commerce, Health and Finance (Expenditure)–is making periodical evaluation of the domestic supply position and all other associated factors before clearing exports of the vaccines.

The export of the latest lot would be majorly directed towards African countries, said officials.

“This has generated a lot of goodwill. We have proved that India is the pharmacy of the world. Vaccines’ export will prove that we are also the vaccine capital of the world,” they said.