“The best vaccine diplomacy is not to rely on the US giving piecemeal donations to countries here and there,” she said. “Those donations are never going to get us to global herd immunity.”
For that 11 billion doses will be needed, according to the Serum Institute.
“Global vaccine inequity is unconscionable,” said Sunder. “It is immoral and threatens our own health, security and economy.”
The US Duke Global Health Innovation Centre estimates up to 9.5 billion doses have already been reserved by developed countries including the US, European Union and Australia. India has bought enough doses to cover 800 million people, 60 per cent of its population.
Matthew Kavanagh from the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law said other parts of the world were also seeing a spike in cases.
“Nepal, Colombia, Malaysia could be next. Brazil is still surging,” he said. “We’re seeing a worrying uptick in Namibia and Botswana. It’s very scary.”
China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday night accused the West of sowing division between developing and developed countries. It claimed one in six Europeans had been vaccinated, one in five in North America but just one in 100 in Africa.
“The international community should reflect upon and stay on high alert to the huge ‘vaccine divide’ between developed and developing countries,” said spokesman Wang Wenbin.
“China is willing to provide support and assistance to India in its fight against the latest surge of infections.”
The Serum Institute and another Indian manufacturer, Bharat Biotech, are largely responsible for making vaccines for most of the world’s developing countries.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne on Tuesday praised India for its vaccine leadership across the region after it exported more than 66 million WHO-approved vaccines. “We warmly acknowledge that generosity,” she said.
But India’s manufacturing is largely focused on the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines because other companies, including Moderna and Pfizer, refuse to share their mRNA technology with producers in other countries.
“This is a critical technology that the US taxpayers funded, and yet ultimately gets packaged up in a patent held by a private corporation,” said Sunder.
“There are a number of companies that could be brought up to speed so they can start producing vaccines themselves for their own countries, for their own populations, but also for their neighbours. Every month we delay is costing us incredibly in the number of lives that we’re losing.”
