In Quad focus: India’s Covid vaccine capacity
Members likely to announce financing deals for firms manufacturing vaccines in India
WASHINGTON: A first ever leaders’ meeting of the Quad group of countries on Friday plans to announce financing agreements to support an increase in manufacturing capacity for coronavirus vaccines in India, a senior US administration official aware of the matter said.
The financing agreements will be between the United States, Japan and others and focus particularly on companies and institutions in India manufacturing vaccines for American drugmakers Novavax Inc and Johnson & Johnson, the official, who did not want to be identified by name, told Reuters.
The aim of the initiative by the Quad -- which groups the United States, India, Japan and Australia -- would be to reduce manufacturing backlogs, speed vaccination, and defeat some coronavirus mutations, the official said.
“The idea is that the quicker you can vaccinate, the more that you can defeat some of these mutations. So this is a capacity that will come online later this year, and it will substantially increase our capacity, collectively,” he said.
Some of the additional vaccine capacity created in India would be used in vaccination efforts in Southeast Asian countries, the official added.
The White House announced earlier on Tuesday that President Joe Biden will participate in an online Quad -- short for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue -- meeting on Friday, the first leader-level meeting of a group seen as part of efforts to balance China’s growing military and economic power.
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said she expected a range of issues facing the global community to be discussed “from the threat of Covid, to economic cooperation and ... the climate crisis”.
India has urged the other Quad members to invest in its vaccine production capacity in an attempt to counter China’s widening vaccine diplomacy.
The timing of the first summit-level meet of the Quad — short for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue — reflects the “importance we place on close cooperation” with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region as it will be one of the earliest of President Joe Biden’s multilateral meetings, the White House said late on Tuesday.
Biden will meet Prime Minis
ter Narendra Modi, Australia’s Scott Morrison and Japan’s Yoshihide Suga virtually on Friday in a meeting that will cement the status of the security grouping that has moved rapidly towards acquiring an institutional structure in recent years. “That President Biden has made this one of his earliest multilateral engagements speaks to the importance we place on close cooperation with our allies and partners in the Indo- Pacific,” said Psaki on Tuesday. “A range of issues, of course, will be discussed -- we expect to be discussed, I should say -- facing the global community from the threat of Covid, to economic cooperation, and of course, to the climate crisis,” Psaki said of the upcoming Quad meet.
The first summit-level meeting was announced by the external affairs ministry in New Delhi this week. “The leaders will discuss regional and global issues of shared interest, and exchange views on practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region,” the ministry said of agenda.
“The Summit will provide an opportunity to exchange views on contemporary challenges such as resilient supply chains, emerging and critical technologies, maritime security, and climate change,” it added.
Formed in the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami — though some say it was started in 2007 — the Quad seemed to be all but over in 2008 chiefly due to Australia’s reluctance to continue. The grouping was revived in 2017 and the first meeting took place on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Manila, 2017. It was held at the level of officials.
The first Quad ministeriallevel meeting was held in September 2019 on the margins of the UN General Assembly meetings in New York. They met again in October 2020 and in February 2021 after President Biden took office.
And now, the first Summit is on Friday.