WEF 2022: World leaders laud India's handling of Covid-19 pandemic

The country's model of ensuring vaccine equity has been praised as worthy of emulation

From the Russia-Ukraine war and climate change to the ongoing food crisis and changing landscape of globalisation amid protectionism, not to mention the Covid-19 pandemic, the world has a lot on its plate.

Yet, when over 2,500 global leaders reached the Swiss resort of Davos for the five-day World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, one of the first things they did was acknowledge India’s success in the timely manufacture of vaccines and their equitable supply within India and globally.

One of the early events at WEF meet was a panel discussion that revolved around preparations for the next pandemic, mental health and health equity. The panelists agreed that recovery from the Covid-19 crisis has been deeply uneven within and between countries, depending on their access to financial resources and vaccines.

The WEF meet even reiterated the significance of a coordinated global response to the Covid-19 pandemic by talking about two recent summits held in Saudi Arabia — the G20 Riyadh Summit and the Extraordinary G20 Leaders’ Summit. The two meetings, according to the Forum, paved the way for the rollout of safe, effective vaccines in affordable, equitable ways around the world. It focused on supporting the poor and highly indebted countries, whose economies have been hit hard by the pandemic, and set out a road map for international efforts to stabilise the global economy.

However, multiple panelists at the meet hailed India for ramping up vaccine manufacturing at the right time — so much so, that India’s model of ensuring vaccine equity and wider inoculation was described as worth emulating by the world.

For instance, according to Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome Trust, India deserved “huge credit” for expanding its vaccine manufacturing capacity.  

Citing Indian manufacturers’ example, the Gavi vaccine alliance’s chief executive officer, Seth F Berkley, said there was a need for the industry to step up efforts to widen the availability of vaccines. According to Berkley, while there were commitments and plans in place to ensure wider inoculation globally when the vaccines were first developed, there came some roadblocks in the form of nationalism and export bans. However, those issues were eventually resolved, he said.

Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher called for emulation of India’s model of not just producing vaccines at speed but also ensuring timely availability to all.

So far, India has carried out over 1.93 billion Covid vaccinations, including 1.01 billion first doses, over 880 million second doses, and more than 33 million booster doses. The country has also supplied 217.39 million doses of the vaccine to 100 countries, including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Brazil, Morocco, Afghanistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, UK, Australia and New Zealand, among others, according to the Ministry of External Affairs.

In fact, led by India’s model of Covid-19 inoculation, one of the major focal points during the WEF meet was a discussion around how leaders could ensure equitable supply of the vaccine and other related tools to boost immunity, so as to enable the reopening of economies.

But it has not been an easy ride for the world’s largest democracy. Caught in the middle of a devastating second wave of the pandemic, India had access to just two vaccine manufacturers. Since the second wave, India has come a long way in terms of vacine manufacture, NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant told the world at Davos.

“At that time, we had only two vaccine manufacturers. Now, we have 10 manufacturers, 14 other vaccines are in various stages of development and we are now determined to become the vaccine capital of the world. We also believe that no Indian is safe until everyone else in the world is safe, and therefore we will ensure that we supply the vaccines to everyone and wherever they are required,” said Kant. Meanwhile, a key sign of India’s journey to becoming the global vaccine capital can be seen in its involvement in the world’s search for a “variant-proof” coronavirus vaccine.

Of the nine projects awarded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a partnership between public, private and philanthropic organisations to develop vaccines against future epidemics, two are from India. These include the consortium of Bharat Biotech, University of Sydney and ExcellGene, as well as Panacea Biotec’s collaboration with the public sector institute, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, with CEPI awarding $19.3 million and $12.5 million, respectively under its $200-million programme launched in March 2021.

The praise for India at WEF came on the heels of the World Health Organisation releasing “excess mortality” figures, which put the country at the top of the pecking order globally. However, this did not garner much attention at Davos.