In talks with Pfizer, J&J, Moderna to source, locally manufacture Covid-19 vaccines: Foreign Secretary

India is also working with several other countries in the WTO on a targeted and temporary waiver under TRIPS, Harsh Vardhan Shringla said

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is in discussion with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson of the United States for importing and local manufacturing of anti-Covid-19 vaccines.

“We are also part of the discussions with major vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna about sourcing and possible local manufacturing of their vaccines in India,” Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla said while referring to the role Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had been playing to support the response of the government to the pandemic. “We have also helped to expedite the introduction of Sputnik-V vaccines (from Russia)”.

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He was virtually addressing the World Health Organisation's South-East Asia Regional Health Partners' Forum on Covid-19.

The MEA also on Thursday said that the Centre was making “all efforts to augment availability of vaccines”, whether through enhanced production in the country or through supply from abroad. “We remain engaged with (the) US vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna as part of this effort,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of the MEA, told journalists.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was on a tour to Washington DC last week when he had meetings with top officials of the Biden Administration and discussed supply of the vaccines from the US to India, apart from stressing the need to ensure uninterrupted supply of raw materials required to manufacture the jabs.

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“Vaccines have complex supply chains. We have worked to ease regulatory disruptions to these supply chains with key partners through diplomatic interventions,” Shringla said on Thursday. “It is in our mutual interest to combat the global pandemic by expediting vaccination efforts”, the MEA spokesperson added later.

The Modi Government itself sent out 107.15 lakh doses of the Made-in-India vaccines to foreign nations as grant till April 16, in addition to the 357.92 lakh doses exported commercially and 198.628 lakh doses as a contribution to the Covax initiative of the World Health Organization, Gavi – the Vaccine Alliance and others to ensure equitable access to anti-Covid-19 vaccines around the world.

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It, however, paused its “Vaccine-Maitri” initiative after shortage of jabs came to the fore and slowed down the inoculation programme in India.

“We are currently purposing domestic vaccine production for our own vaccination programme,” the MEA spokesperson said, adding that it would not be right to talk about supply of vaccines from India when the focus was on bringing in adequate number of doses of the jabs from abroad.

During the first Covid wave last year, a global sourcing operation was launched to procure ventilators, PPE kits, test kits and others. These helped India to tide over the situation till domestic manufacturing scaled up to meet the demand, Shringla said.

A total of 91 cargo flights were organised between April and August 2020 to bring in these supplies, he said.

"The effort to procure urgently needed medical supplies was reactivated during the second wave. We have been a vital part of a global effort to source liquid medical oxygen, cryogenic ISO tankers, zeolites and essential medicines like Remdesivir, Tocilizumab and Amphotericin B.

"These have been sourced from multiple nations and moved to multiple destinations in India," Shringla said, adding the MEA will continue to facilitate supplies of essential raw materials and components.