India to drive Covid vaccine delivery in Asia Pacific: Moody's Analytics

Says the country's position as world's largest vaccines maker with 60% of global share, will help it achieve this distinction

Moody's Analytics believes that India will drive the Asia pacific region's distribution efforts for Covid-19 vaccines in the coming months. 

As the largest producer of vaccines in the world, with 60 per cent of the global share, India is well-positioned to use its existing manufacturing capabilities to contribute to mass vaccine production and distribution needs for other countries in addition to meeting its domestic requirements, it said in its latest report. 

"With exports of the Covid-19 vaccines expected to begin soon, India (along with China) look set to take the lead in driving the regionʼs distribution efforts in the months ahead," said the report, titled "Asia's Vaccine Update: A Step-up in Momentum - India's advancement toward inoculations is a crucial development for the region”.

It said India's advancement towards inoculations is an important development for the region.  

'As India is the second most-impacted country in the world, after the US, the need for local immunisation is paramount to contain the significant socio-economic costs, and the countryʼs success in advancing on this front will eventually soften the severity of the pandemic within the region," Moody's Analytics said.

The report said  with the economic costs of the Covid-19 shock piling up, in recent weeks some countries in the region have stepped up their efforts towards vaccine procurement and rollout.

The regionʼs recovery momentum remains uneven, but the risks have shifted since the last update from Moody's Analytics. 

With respect to local containment, near-term prospects have taken a turn for the worse, with the third waves in Japan and South Korea leading to renewed restrictions including shutdowns across Japanʼs key prefectures, the report said. 

The Southeast Asian economies of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia are battling intensifying caseloads with stringent containment measures, it said. 

China, too, has placed four cities under lockdown aer a sudden rise in daily caseloads, though at an average of under 100 cases per day over the past week, the new outbreak remains well below the regional median, Moody's Analytics said.

For many countries, the recent turn has prompted a more urgent need to advance with their vaccine procurement and implementation plans. For the Asia-Pacic region, thereʼs a gradual but noticeable shift away from the relatively guarded approach to one that is more proactive and akin to Western economies,  the report said.