India's COVID vaccine "heist" is threatening the world

The situation would have been different had the Indian government bought up SII’s manufacturing capacity last year, before the company made commitments to COVAX and other buyers. It would have been hard to fault the country for trying to protect its people. Instead, the government waited until after aid dollars and advance payments financed the scale-up of SII’s manufacturing facilities to meet the demand from COVAX and other countries before stepping in and stopping exports to low-income countries that had been assured equal access to vaccines by the COVAX organizers. In essence, India is “stealing” vaccines meant for low-income countries for its own use... The lesson from India’s Covid-19 vaccine sagas is stark and simple: Can India be considered a reliable supplier of vaccines during the next pandemic? The country’s reputation as the “pharmacy of the developing world” is taking a beating thanks to its vaccine heist and rickety regulatory capacity. Who will trust a country that blocked the export of paid-for vaccines in the middle of a pandemic? The owner of SII, who will probably be sued for breach of contract by multiple parties, has already announced it will set up manufacturing facilities outside India — a sign for the rest of the world of the Indian government’s missteps in managing this pandemic. Could there be a worse fall from grace for a country whose prime minister was boasting just a few months ago of saving the rest of the developing world?