NEW DELHI: Even as
Brazil readies a special aircraft to fly to Mumbai on Friday to pick up 2 million doses of
Covid vaccine, the Indian government is signalling that its priority would be to cater to its own population first. Officials on Thursday said the
vaccine supply for Brazil would be postponed by a few days “for logistics issues.”
India is rolling out the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16 in several phases. When questioned about the international requests for
vaccines from India, the MEA spokesperson, Anurag Srivastava, said, “It is too early to give a specific response on the supplies to other countries as we are still assessing production schedules and availability to take decisions in this regard. This may take some time.”
The government’s response is significant in light of the fact that the prime minister himself has promised that India would share its vaccine production and delivery capacities with other countries.
Sources said, the government is currently being deluged by international requests, which is coming into conflict with two things — production and delivery of vaccines by the two companies,
Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech; and India’s own needs. The plan, for the present, is to cater to India’s needs, meet its commitment to GAVI, distribute vaccines among India’s immediate neighbours, before giving to other countries.
Serum Institute and
Bharat Biotech have both have been contracted to supply vaccines commercially to different countries — Bharat Biotech will be supplying a set of vaccines to Brazil, as well as other countries like Philippines. Serum Institute has also contracted to supply to Morocco and
Saudi Arabia among others.