With the COVID Crisis Exploding in India, More Countries Turn to China to Fill the Vaccine Void

The vaccine distribution dynamic is rapidly changing in response to the unfolding calamity in India, where the country’s healthcare system has collapsed due to an explosion of infections across the country.

Experts say the Indian government’s claim of 300,000 infections and 2,000 deaths per day is a severe undercount because the pandemic is spreading fastest in the countryside where there’s no way to monitor it due to a lack of public health infrastructure.

What’s happening now in India is having direct, critical implications on developing countries in Africa, Asia, and around the world who had been counting on Indian factories to supply them with AstraZeneca vaccines as part of the global Covax initiative. New Delhi has now halted all vaccine exports so they can be used domestically instead.

“If the delay continues — I hope it’s a delay and not a ban — that would be catastrophic for meeting our vaccinations schedule,” said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, echoing the concerns of public health officials throughout the Global South.

So far, Covax has delivered around 18 million doses to 41 African countries — a rather small number, given that AZ is a two-dose shot and the billion-plus jabs that will likely be needed to help the continent achieve some degree of herd immunity.

Not surprisingly, a number of countries are looking to China to help fill the void. Earlier this week, Egypt announced that it would purchase an additional 20 million doses of Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccines. Indonesian President Joko Widodo personally asked Xi Jinping in a phone call on Tuesday to help make up for the lack of AZ vaccines that were supposed to have come from India. And in the Americas, Mexico, Chile and Brazil have all doubled down on the use of Chinese vaccines for their national inoculation campaigns.

Even though Chinese vaccine output is expected to reach 3 billion doses this year and 5 billion in 2022, it may not be enough to help with Africa’s current needs. To date, China has shipped 6.7 million doses to Africa, according to Bridge Consulting in Beijing, but that’s spread across 27 countries so the quantities in each state are quite low.

“The challenge that many African countries face is that the supply of vaccines is currently too slow to meet our needs,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said last week.

SUGGESTED READING:

• Nikkei Asia: Africa’s vaccination push hampered by India export curbs by Takeshi Kumon
• Financial Times: ‘It is much worse this time’: India’s devastating second wave

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The post With the COVID Crisis Exploding in India, More Countries Turn to China to Fill the Vaccine Void appeared first on The China Africa Project.

source https://chinaafricaproject.com/2021/04/22/with-the-covid-crisis-exploding-in-india-more-countries-turn-to-china-to-fill-the-vaccine-void/