Vaccine diplomacy has brought out the best and the worst.

There are the usual small-minded intellectual property battles, which really do not show #BigPharma in a good light. See my piece on Chintan here: https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/why-india-should-rely-on-its-domestically-produced-vaccines/ and its podcast version is above.

The US is reputedly hoarding 30 million doses of AstraZeneca (which is not approved for distribution in the US yet), and the UK is complaining that India is not giving it units, instead, how dare they deny it to the former imperial overlord!, India is using it for its own, much larger population! https://www.ft.com/content/d5a26194-9537-4b57-b35a-99236b67823b

There are claims and counter claims of hoarding by EU members.

Meanwhile, India has shipped out more units to other countries, quite a bit of it for free to neighbors and smaller developing countries, than it has used for ramping up its own vaccination.

But one thing is for sure: India has cracked vaccine manufacturing. Other industries should learn from this, and both should now go up the value chain to R&D and product design. Manufacturing savvy is a big leg up for innovation.

PS. Out of courtesy, here’s the article on vaccine imperialism from redflag.org.au. https://redflag.org.au/node/7542. I neither endorse not disagree with them, I am simply posting it here to thank them for their striking photography above, which I give them due credit for.

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