India Faces Indemnity Roadblock as US Readies to Ship Vaccines Globally

The United States’ ‘vaccine sharing’ policy, will see the country distribute 80 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to countries all around the world.

The Biden administration clarified that the United States will promptly ship out 25 million doses. During the summer, almost 75 per cent of the 80 million doses would be administered. Between one and two million of these would be made accessible to India. These will not be AstraZeneca dosages, which have not yet been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The rest would be given out at the discretion of the US administration. The donations will come from Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J shots that have gained emergency use authorization (EUA) in the United States.

However, this places India in a unique position, as while the government has granted broad authorization for vaccines approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Japan, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the World Health Organization (WHO), Pfizer and Moderna have each requested a separate indemnity waiver from the Indian government.

This essentially indicates that in order for India to get the vaccine donation from the United States, it will have to provide indemnity to these two companies. Hesitation towards the move remains in the government.

According to senior officials, the dispute revolved around the notion that if the government granted the US businesses an indemnity waiver, all other vaccine producers, notably those in India, would be within their rights to request the same. The government has yet to decide whether or not it will grant similar waiver to others.

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