India starts exporting coronavirus vaccines, as its own inoculation drive fails to meet targets
- Neighbours including Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and the Seychelles will receive supplies of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine
- Bharat Biotech warned some to avoid its shot, as officials appealed to frontline workers not to refuse vaccines amid safety concerns
“First consignment takes off for Bhutan!” Anurag Srivastava, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, said on Twitter. “India begins supply of Covid vaccines to its neighbouring and key partner countries.”
Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine producer, said it soon expected emergency use authorisation from the World Health Organization (WHO) for the easy-to-store vaccine, which it has been licensed to make.
The foreign ministry said shipments of millions of doses would start on Wednesday following requests from “neighbouring and key partner countries”. Officials said the first doses would go to Bhutan and the Maldives, while Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and the Seychelles will also get supplies in this week’s first phase.
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The Bangladesh foreign ministry said it expected to receive a gift of 2 million doses on Thursday. The country of 160 million, which has yet to start its vaccination programme, has ordered a further 30 million doses, officials said.
The foreign ministry said Astra-Oxford vaccine supplies to Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Mauritius would begin soon after those countries’ regulators cleared the drug.
Pakistan is alone among India’s neighbours where it has no plans to send vaccine doses, and a government in New Delhi source said no request had come from there.
The vast majority of the production of the three most widely approved Covid-19 vaccines globally has so far been hoovered up by developed nations, raising concerns at the WHO and elsewhere that poorer countries could face a long wait for supplies.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is widely viewed as their best option because the other two, manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech and by Moderna, need to be stored at very low temperatures.
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WHO emergency authorisation for the Astra-Oxford vaccine would additionally allow SII to begin supplying it to the WHO-backed Covax initiative aimed at fairly distributing Covid-19 shots across the world.
India, which has the world’s second highest coronavirus caseload, has said it needs to balance its domestic requirements with international demands. It began giving shots of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as another developed by home-grown vaccine developer Bharat Biotech, to domestic health workers on Saturday.
The country plans to start exporting Bharat Biotech’s vaccine at a later stage.
Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech on Tuesday warned people with weak immunity and other medical conditions including allergies, fever or a bleeding disorder to consult a doctor before getting the shot – and if possible avoid the vaccine.
The company said those receiving vaccinations should disclose their medical condition, medicines they are taking and any history of allergies. It said severe allergic reactions among vaccine recipients may include difficulty breathing, swelling of the face and throat, rapid heartbeat, body rashes, dizziness and weakness.
The vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech ran into controversy after the Indian government allowed its use without concrete data showing its effectiveness in preventing Covid-19. Tens of thousands of people have been given the shot in the past three days in what is likely the world’s largest coronavirus vaccination campaign.
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Bharat Biotech has still not published data on its vaccine’s effectiveness but said it is complying with clinical trial guidelines.
The regulator maintains the vaccine is safe and gave its approval in the belief that it could be more effective in tackling a new variant of the coronavirus found in the UK. The regulator and the company have said efficacy data will be published after ongoing late clinical trials conclude.
Most hospitals in India are inoculating health care workers with the AstraZeneca vaccine. But turnout, particularly in those hospitals using the Bharat Biotech vaccine, has been relatively low, health officials said.
India on Tuesday appealed to frontline workers not to refuse vaccines, after almost all states failed to meet targets in the first few days of the immunisation campaign.
The country has so far vaccinated 631,417 frontline workers. The drive started on Saturday, with 30 million health care and other front-line workers first in the queue, followed by about 270 million people older than 50 or deemed at high-risk because of pre-existing medical conditions.
Vinod K. Paul, who heads a government committee on vaccine strategy, told a news conference health workers who failed to take vaccine doses set aside for them were not fulfilling their “societal responsibility”.
“Please understand the whole world is clamouring for vaccines,” said Paul. “If our health care workers, our doctors and nurses, if they are declining to take it, I feel sorry,” he said. “I plead with them, on behalf of the government, because we don’t know what shape this pandemic will take going forward.”
In a survey conducted by New Delhi-based online platform LocalCircles, 62 per cent of 17,000 respondents were hesitant to get vaccinated immediately, mainly due to worries over possible side-effects. The government has reported hospitalisation from side effects in only 0.002 per cent of vaccine recipients.
On Tuesday India reported 10,064 infections, the fewest in seven months, taking the total to 10.58 million. Deaths rose by an eight-month low figure of 137, taking the overall tally to 152,556.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
