Pressing The Covid-19 Spike: India Exempts Import Duty For Vaccines, Asks The United States To Raise Ban On Exports Of Raw Materials

JAKARTA - The Indian government is faced with a surge in COVID-19 cases. Data from Worldometers, India now has a total of 15,057,767 cases of COVID-19 infection. Second in the world after the United States and above Brazil.

Daily COVID-19 cases in India soared a record 273,810 on Monday, and deaths rose 1,619 to 178,769. Hospitals are short on beds, oxygen and essential medicines.

The government is moving fast. The Indian capital, New Delhi, is under a tight lockdown for the next six days. The vaccination program is also speeding up. The government requires vaccine manufacturers to supply 50 percent of the dose to the federal government, the rest to states and the open market at previously announced prices.

On vaccines, India will waive 10 percent import duty on imported COVID-19 vaccines, a senior government official told Reuters.

India's imported Russian Sputnik V vaccine will arrive soon. In addition, the government also urged Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to sell their products to India.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the government was considering allowing private entities to import vaccines approved for sale on the open market, without government interference and given the freedom to set prices.

The Indian government currently regulates all policies related to the COVID-19 vaccine. There has been no comment from the authorities on this.

Apart from removing import duties on vaccines, India also hopes that the United States will immediately lift a ban on vaccine raw materials which threatens to slow down the production of the COVID-19 vaccine in the country, said two sources.

One of the sources said President Joe Biden's Administration had notified India that its request was being considered and would be followed up as soon as possible.

The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar had discussed with US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken, among others, discussing issues related to health cooperation. Meanwhile, the US State Department confirmed that the two diplomats discussed COVID-19, but did not provide details.

The United States is known to use the provisions of the Defense Production Act, to withhold vaccine raw materials only for domestic vaccine producers. However, the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's largest vaccine maker, says this runs counter to the global goal of sharing vaccines fairly.

"The United States needs to lift restrictions on APIs without which there would not be a vaccine for all," said one source, referring to the active pharmaceutical ingredients for producing vaccines.

To note, SII itself has a license to make AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, as well as a vaccine developed by the US company Novavax.