A group of bipartisan influential American lawmakers has requested President Biden to partner with India on global Covid-19 vaccine supply to ensure its allies do not use substandard vaccines from China and Russia. In a letter to President Biden, they urged him to push for effective supply and distribution of Cobervax, a US-made, India-manufactured affordable vaccine- amongst its allies to fight the pandemic.
"We have seen with the emergence of Delta and Omicron, Covid-19 variants will continue to threaten our own domestic health security and full economic recovery. While we recognize existing administration efforts to supply Covid-19 vaccines around the world, the global supply is woefully insufficient to meet urgent and pressing demands… Our partners and allies are forced to utilize ineffective and substandard vaccines from China and Russia, adversaries seeking to leverage this pandemic for economic and political gain,” the letter read.
This is said to be a result of efficient advocacy by Indian ambassador to the U.S. Taranjeet Singh Sandhu to various influential caucuses for strong Indo-US partnership in providing affordable healthcare especially vaccines to African and Latin American countries.
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The letter has been signed by Senator John Cornyn (Republican), Co-Chair, Senate India Caucus; Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (Democrat), Chairwoman of the Science and Technology Committee; Congressman Michael McCaul (Republican), Ranking Member of House Foreign Affairs Committee; Congressman Joaquin Castro (Democrat), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Development, and International Organizations and Congressman Mark Veasey (Democrat), Member, House Armed Services Committee.
The letter also flagged the woeful vaccine supply-chain crisis, aggravated by poor-quality Chinese vaccines, which has seen several low-income and middle-lower-income countries unable to access it. “While we recognize existing administration efforts to supply Covid-19 vaccines around the world, the global supply is woefully insufficient to meet urgent and pressing demands…Our partners and allies are forced to utilize ineffective and substandard vaccines from China and Russia, adversaries seeking to leverage this pandemic for economic and political gain,” it further read.
Last month, the influential Black caucus had appreciated India’s vaccination program and lauded its effort to provide quality vaccines to various low-income countries. “(we) laud your government’s efforts as it has selflessly shared over 8 million vaccines with at least 38 countries… This pandemic has brought the global economy to a standstill and around the world, people continue to struggle even as governments have initiated recovery measures to rekindle economic activity and return to normalcy,” the letter read.
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Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac had announced back in 2020 that it planned to finish setting-up a new manufacturing facility to double annual vaccine production capacity to 600 million doses. Sinovac had supplied 260 million doses by April 2021 globally. Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey and Chile were amongst the major buyers.
Cobervax is a protein-subunit type vaccine developed by Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas and Dynavax technologies based in Emeryville California and to be manufactured by Biological E of India.
