The Reality of Vax India

Context: India’s vaccine internationalism is in perfect alignment with its role as a major global player during the pandemic.

Factors Strengthening India’s Vaccine Internationalism

• Traditional vaccine superpower: India contributes more than half of all the vaccines distributed by the United Nations and is the first and only lower-middle-income countries to start vaccination drive.
  • India is supplying vaccines under grant assistance to Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles.
  • Indian vaccine supply will support the success of Covax facility (by World Health Organisation (WHO)) and will ensure vaccine to countries awaiting regulatory clearances ahead of Covax facility
    • Covax initiative is struggling to secure supplies due to competition from rich countries.
• Political consensus over vaccine exports: India is prioritizing high-risk populations across the border ahead of low-risk populations within the country.
• Moral commitment under Sarv santu niramaya principle: ‘May all be free from disease’ the guiding principle of India’s Ayushman Bharat aims to help all of the humanity fight the pandemic.
• Missing vaccine diplomacy on global scene: due to the US’ acting as a ‘lone-wolf ’ superpower and the ‘me-first’ world of the global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is dominated by vaccine nationalism.
  • Only 55 Covid-19 vaccines have gone to people of a low-income country like Guinea (out of 55 million).

Conclusion: India’s balance of equity and strategy considerations in vaccine diplomacy would, in many ways, define the future of global health as well as a multipolar world.