India, Covid-19 and vaccine politics

India, Covid-19 and vaccine politics

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India is embarking on one of the world's most ambitious coronavirus vaccine programmes. Central to this effort is the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer here in Pune. As a major pharma player India has the advantage of huge manufacturing capacity. Along with inoculating its own population, India plans to export the vaccine to the developing world.

But the government faces key challenges. Rolling out the vaccine quickly across a diverse country is a huge operation. Convincing people from all walks of life to take the vaccine is a major challenge. What's more, the approval of its homegrown vaccines has already proved controversial. And the first days of India's vaccine rollout have been slow, underscoring the difficult path ahead.

Indian government realised very early that it's one of our strengths to manufacture a vaccine and supply in large quantities.

India is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of vaccines. Two vaccines have been approved by the government so far, Covaxin and developed by Bharat Biotech and the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research, and Covishield, the locally produced version of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. There are several more in the pipeline based