India aims to use coronavirus ‘vaccine diplomacy’ to counter China, but is it jumping the gun?
- India aims to roll out its Covid-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin to its neighbours to boost its regional importance
- But analysts say New Delhi must tread cautiously as Covaxin has not completed phase three trials and any side effects could cause a diplomatic crisis
Multiple senior officials have emphasised that India’s priority is to supply vaccine doses to its neighbours, a week after the country’s drug regulator authorised two vaccines for restricted emergency use – Covishield and Covaxin, a home-grown vaccine by the Hyderabad-based giant Bharat Biotech.
But phase three trials for Covaxin have not yet been completed, while insufficient data in the public domain and the opaque approval process have triggered concern among experts that regulators are jumping the gun.
Anant Bhan, a researcher in global health and bioethics based in India, said a lack of transparency from regulators who cleared the vaccines for use “could hurt the credibility of Indian vaccine science and trust in the regulatory processes”.
Bordering nations like Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal, and several others beyond such as South Korea, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and South Africa, have expressed keen interest in procuring vaccines manufactured in India – the pharmaceutical powerhouse of the world, accounting for over 60 per cent of the global supply of vaccines.