Vaccine exports to be determined in a few weeks

India will be able to decide on exports of coronavirus vaccines within the next fewweeks, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said yesterday, as governments abroad seek to shore up supplies. India, one of the world’s biggest producers of vaccines and generic drugs, is expected to be a key manufacturing centre for Covid- 19 vaccines.

Jaishankar told the Reuters Next conference that India understood the anxieties of foreign governments about getting the vaccines delivered to their populations.

“We will get clarity pretty soon on what our own consumption is going got be, [ what] deployments are going to be. And we will keep our global role very much,” he said.

Last week, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro wrote a letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking to expedite a shipment of AstraZeneca’s Covid- 19 vaccine, which is being made by Serum Institute of India, the world’s biggest producer of vaccines. Bangladesh this week said it expected to receive initial shipments of the vaccine from SII by January 25.

India has to balance the needs of its own population, which is set to receive the first shots this weekend, with that of foreign countries, Jaishankar said, speaking from Delhi at the virtual conference. “The policy of course is we will start the rollout in India. We have our own challenges,” Jaishankar said.

“A number of countries are in touch with us ... and what we are telling them is, look, this is the first month,” he added.