India’s rising output of COVID-19 vaccines and the inoculation of more than half its adult population with at least one dose are raising hopes the country will return as an exporter within months, ramping up from early next year, reported Gulf News. After donating or selling 66 million doses to nearly 100 countries, India barred exports in the middle of April to focus on domestic immunisation as infections exploded, upsetting the inoculation plans of many African and South Asian countries. India’s daily vaccinations surpassed 10 million doses on Friday, with national vaccine production more than doubling since April and set to rise again in the coming weeks. New production lines have been set up, a vaccine developed by Cadila Healthcare won recent approval, and commercial production of Russia’s Sputnik V is starting in India.  Also read: Covid-19: India entering 'endemecity', 26.8% of world fully vaccinated The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s biggest vaccine maker, is now producing about 150 million doses a month of its version of the AstraZeneca shot, more than twice its April output of about 65 million, a source with knowledge of the matter said. “No fixed timeline on exports but the company hopes to restart in a few months,” said the source, who declined to be named without approval to talk on the matter.  SII, which has previously indicated exports could resume by year-end, did not respond to a request for comment. Global vaccine sharing platform COVAX hopes India will restart foreign sales sooner than later. “With successful national vaccination and the arrival of more products, we are hoping that Indian supply to COVAX will resume as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson for the platform’s co-lead GAVI told Reuters in an email.  Also read: Manipal Hospitals launches the first Radixact System with Synchrony technology in India India, a major international producer of many other vaccines, could play a “similarly transformative role in the global response to COVID-19,” the spokesperson said. India’s health ministry and the foreign ministry, which coordinates vaccine exports, did not respond to a request for comment. Bharat Biotech, the maker of India’s first domestically developed COVID-19 shot, on Sunday inaugurated a new factory with a production capacity of 10 million doses a month. It said it was “marching towards” a goal of a total annual capacity of about 1 billion doses of the drug, Covaxin. Infections, meanwhile, are again rising in India after an explosive outbreak in April and May. But the country has administered more than 633 million vaccine doses, with at least one dose to 52% of its 944 million adults and two doses to more than 15%. A government source told Reuters in June the U.S. experience showed that vaccinations tend to slow down after a big majority of people get their shots. That might give SII a chance to export excess output, said the source. The chief of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party said this month India could produce as many as 1.1 billion vaccine doses between September and December, enough to fully immunise all adults in the country this year.  India has so far given emergency authorisation to six COVID-19 shots, four of which are being produced locally. One more domestic vaccine is expected to be approved soon while many more are going through mid-stage trials. 

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen thanked Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu for Japan’s decision to provide 3.0 million AstraZeneca vaccines to Bangladesh through the WHO-COVAX mechanism.  "We acknowledge with deep appreciation the continued assistance of Japan in facing the challenges of Covid-19 pandemic in Bangladesh, including the direct budgetary support," he said in a letter to his Japanese counterpart. The first consignment of 2,45,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine arrived here on Saturday afternoon from Japan. Also read: Bangladesh to go for Covid vaccine coproduction soon: FM Foreign Minister Dr Momen received the vaccine doses that came under the COVAX facility. "We urge all for a global and united response for containing this pandemic, ensuring availability of vaccines on a global scale and mobility of resources to stimulate the global economy," Dr Momen mentioned in his letter. He also lauded Japanese Prime Minister Suga’s leadership in hosting the Vaccine Summit on June 2 and committing vaccines and funds to combat the pandemic. "As we prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relation between our two friendly countries in 2022, I reaffirm that Bangladesh considers Japan as a true and trusted friend and also a reliable development partner," Dr Momen said. He mentioned that both the countries are now working to upgrade the Bangladesh-Japan relationship from a ‘Comprehensive Partnership’ to the ‘Strategic Partnership’ level.  "I sincerely believe that our ongoing Covid cooperation will further strengthen and deepen our bilateral relation," Momen said, wishing the Tokyo Olympic Games a grand success.  He wished his Japanese counterpart a long life with good health and happiness, and continued peace, progress and prosperity of the friendly people of Japan.  Japan says it will stand by Bangladesh in the fight against Covid-19. Also read: 3 mn more Moderna vaccine jabs reach Bangladesh  Earlier, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi made an announcement that 15 countries in the region will be provided with 11 million doses in total under the COVAX facility.

India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, is working to resume the export of Covid vaccine jabs to Bangladesh as vaccine production in India is growing rapidly. Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Vikram Kumar Doraiswami reiterated this at Akhaura International Checkpost on his way back to Bangladesh from India on Friday morning. Read:India trying to send vaccine jabs to Bangladesh soon: Doraiswami The envoy said India is working to resume the vaccine supply to Bangladesh and the increased production of Covid vaccine is a positive sign. "Hopefully, we’ll be able to send vaccine jabs to Bangladesh if vaccine production increases further. But I can't give any specific date in this regard," he told local journalists. He said the trade volume between the two countries has increased despite the pandemic. "If our communication systems remain suitable, then we’ll be able to continue trading amid this pandemic." Read:Doraiswami keen to push Covaxin as Covishield exports disrupted Doraiswami also said India will be happy it can cooperate more with Bangladesh in their fight against Covid-19. Akhaura Upazila Nirbahi Officer Rumana Akhter, officer-in-charge of Akhaura Police Station Md Mizanur Rahman and Immigration Police In-Charge Md Abdul Hamid others were present. On July 18, the envoy went to New Delhi though Akhaura land port to discuss how India can expedite the supply of the remaining doses of Covishield jabs produced by Serum Institute of India. Read:Greater trade, connectivity hold brighter future for Dhaka-Delhi ties: Doraiswami Bangladesh was scheduled to get three crore doses of vaccines from India under a tripartite agreement signed last year. But New Delhi halted the export after sending only 75 lakh doses in March citing high domestic demand.

All foreign investors and business people working in Bangladesh should get equal treatment under the country’s Covid-19 vaccination program, South Korean Ambassador in Dhaka Lee Jang-keun said on Wednesday. Ambassador Lee said this will be in line with the government’s policy to promote business-friendly environment. Read: Korea to provide $700 mn of EDCF loan to Bangladesh He hoped that all foreign investors will be eligible for vaccinations as soon as the vaccine supply becomes normal in Bangladesh. Speaking at a virtual discussion, the ambassador pointed out that despite the growth of overall trade volume, bilateral trade between Dhaka and Seoul has remained static at $1.7 billion for the past decade. In order to realize the full bilateral commercial potentials he called for fostering a business-friendly environment, including addressing the challenges in tax and tariff policy, repatriation of profit, and streamlining administrative procedures. The Embassy of Bangladesh in Seoul hosted the virtual discussion on “Bangladesh and ROK: Trade and Investment Opportunities”. Read:S Korea pledges $200mn to provide vaccines in lower-income countries

World Trade Organization members agreed on Wednesday to start formal negotiations on a plan to boost COVID-19 vaccine supply to developing countries, but face rival proposals – one with and one without a waiver of intellectual property rights reported The Indian Express. South Africa and India, backed by many emerging nations, have been pushing for eight months for a temporary waiver of IP rights on vaccines and other treatments. This could allow local manufacturers to produce the shots, something the proponents say is essential to redress “staggering” inequity of supply. Also read: WTO panel considers easing protections on COVID-19 vaccines Developed nations, many home to large pharmaceutical companies, have resisted, arguing that a waiver would not boost production and could undermine future research and development on vaccines and therapeutics.  The European Union presented a plan, backed by Britain, Switzerland and South Korea, that it argues would more effectively broaden supply. Existing WTO rules, it says, already allow countries to grant licences to manufacturers even without the patent-holder’s consent. WTO members agreed to begin discussions on June 17 to determine the format of negotiations and to produce a report outlining their progress on the vaccine supply plan by July 21-22, when the WTO’s general council convenes, a Geneva trade official said. “This is a major breakthrough – after eight months of stalling,” said Leena Menghany, global IP adviser for medical aid group MSF, which backs a waiver. A surprise US shift last month to support a waiver heaped pressure on the opponents, but Washington trade officials appear to favour one limited to vaccines. Also read: Australia says WTO should punish Chinese economic coercion The waiver proposal from the emerging nations also includes diagnostics, therapeutics and medical devices. That proposal, whose text was revised in May, also sets a time span of “at least three years” and might allow a single WTO member to prolong it indefinitely. The United States told delegates it was still reviewing the revised proposal, but its initial reaction was that it was only a modest change from the original, on which WTO members had not reached the required consensus.   It said discussions needed a “revised scope” and WTO members should focus on what actions might be needed to address vaccine supply and distribution specifically and on areas most likely to be accepted by others as soon as possible.

April is shaping up to be Brazil’s darkest month yet in the pandemic, with hospitals struggling with a crush of patients, deaths on track for record highs and few signs of a reprieve from a troubled vaccination program in Latin America’s largest nation. The Health Ministry has cut its outlook for vaccine supplies in April three times already, to half their initial level, and the country’s two biggest laboratories are facing supply constraints. The delays also mean tens of thousands more deaths as the particularly contagious P.1 variant of COVID-19 sweeps Brazil. It has recorded about 350,000 of the 2.9 million virus deaths worldwide, behind only the U.S. toll of over 560,000. Brazil’s seven-day rolling average has increased to 2,820 deaths per day, compared with the global average of 10,608 per day, according to data through April 8 from Johns Hopkins University. The death toll is forecast to continue rising in the next two weeks to an average of nearly 3,500 per day before receding, according to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Public health experts blame President Jair Bolsonaro for refusing to enact strict measures to halt infections and for clashing with governors and mayors who did. Failure to control the spread has been compounded by the Health Ministry betting big on a single vaccine, AstraZeneca, then buying only one backup, the Chinese-manufactured CoronaVac, after supply problems emerged. Authorities ignored other producers and squandered opportunities until it was too late to get large quantities of vaccine for the first half of 2021. Also read: Brazil becomes 2nd nation to top 300,000 COVID-19 deaths With extensive experience in successful, massive vaccination programs, Brazil should have known better, said Claudio Maierovitch, former head of Brazil’s health regulator.  “The big problem is that Brazil did not look for alternatives when it had the chance,” he said. “When several countries were placing their bets, signing contracts with different suppliers, the Brazilian government didn’t even have vaccination on its agenda.” For months, Bolsonaro’s administration ignored pleas to sign more than one contract for vaccines. The president publicly questioned the reliability of other shots and scoffed at contractual terms, suggesting that recipients of the Pfizer vaccine would have no legal recourse were they to transform into alligators. He insisted he wouldn’t force anyone to get vaccinated and only recently said he might get a shot himself. Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute that advocates for expanding global vaccine access, said she despaired at the government strategy. Brazil has been far and away Latin America’s immunization front-runner, so much so that she hadn’t seen it in the same league as the region’s other countries. Also Read: Brazil reports 37,614 new COVID-19 cases Given the problems in vaccine development and distribution, “it’s definitely not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket,” she said from Washington. Stalled supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine in January amid pressure for Brazil to begin its vaccination campaign prompted the Health Ministry to acquire tens of millions of shots from Sao Paulo state’s Butantan Institute, which is mixing an active ingredient from China with a sterile solution and bottling it. The shots were the fruit of the state’s negotiations with Chinese company Sinovac and went ahead despite Bolsonaro’s criticisms. Brazil’s government also dragged its feet in signing on to the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative providing vaccines to poorer nations. It ultimately bought the bare minimum — enough for 10% of its population of 210 million. “I was so anxious when that was going on; I couldn’t believe they weren’t going to sign it,” said Garrett, who is Brazilian. “When I heard they signed, I was relieved. We were all relieved. But they signed for the minimum amount possible. ... Brazil isn’t in a better vaccination position now because of the incompetence or inactivity of the federal government.” In February, Brazil began signing contracts with other pharmaceutical companies, but none of their shots have been administered. Of the 10% of people who received one dose so far, the vast majority received Butantan’s shot and the rest got the AstraZeneca shot, which government health institute Fiocruz is bottling. Both Brazilian labs face supply problems. Butantan said Wednesday it was suspending production while it awaits shipments of the active ingredient from China. Fiocruz has produced only 4 million of the 50 million doses it agreed to deliver by the end of April. That threatens to reduce the speed of vaccinations, which finally hit 1 million doses per day last week, according to a consortium of local media that compiles data from state health secretariats. Intensive care units for COVID-19 patients in most Brazilian states are above 90% capacity. Seven of every 10 hospitals in the country risk running out of supplemental oxygen and anesthetic in the next few days, the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported April 8. At the municipal hospital of Sao Joao de Meriti, a city in Rio de Janeiro’s metropolitan area, the ICU ward is almost full, with many patients sharing space and oxygen bottles while being treated. Hospital director Altair Soares Neto said health professionals scarcely find time to sleep. “Will we have the medicines, the oxygen, the conditions to care for this patient accordingly? Today we do. But, if cases keep growing, sometime we will fight chaos,” he said. The surge of deaths has brought widespread outcry. Brazil’s Association of Collective Health, which has nearly 20,000 members including doctors, nurses and health experts, published an open letter this week demanding a three-week national lockdown, echoing increasingly urgent calls from others. Bolsonaro has refused proposed lockdowns, arguing their economic impact would be even more devastating than the virus. He even took three states to the Supreme Court last month for adopting such restrictions. “If we just wait for the vaccine to reach all risk groups, many people will die,” said the health association’s president, Gulnar Azevedo e Silva. “There is no national coordination. And if we don’t have that, what happens? Chaos.” An agreement for FioCruz to acquire AstraZeneca’s technology would allow Brazil to produce an entirely locally made vaccine and make the nation less vulnerable to constraints on imported active ingredients. Fiocruz forecasts deliveries will start in September. But that date could be pushed back due to the complexity of the process and strict quality control, its press office said in an emailed response to questions. While visiting Fiocruz on Friday, health minister Marcelo Queiroga told reporters there are other countries that are also experiencing problems with their supply of active ingredients, and that vaccines won’t remedy Brazil’s high level of COVID-19 deaths in the short-term. He said the government doesn’t have a “magic wand to fix all the problems.” Carla Domingues, former coordinator of Brazil’s national immunization program, praised the country for approaching 1 million doses per day but said it had the infrastructure for a stronger campaign if only the government had secured the vaccines.   “Of course, we would like to vaccinate more, like in the U.S., but we can’t,” she said. “We’re going to have to live with this virus for a long time.” ___ Associated Press photographer Felipe Dana contributed to this report. 

More than one hundred economies have received life-saving COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX, the global mechanism for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, says the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday. The milestone comes 42 days after the first COVAX doses were shipped and delivered internationally, to Ghana on 24 February 2021. COVAX has now delivered more than 38 million doses across six continents, supplied by three manufacturers, AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and the Serum Institute of India (SII). Of the over 100 economies reached, 61 are among the 92 lower-income economies receiving vaccines funded through the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Despite reduced supply availability in March and April – the result of vaccine manufacturers scaling and optimizing their production processes in the early phase of the rollout, as well as increased demand for COVID-19 vaccines in India – COVAX expects to deliver doses to all participating economies that have requested vaccines in the first half of the year. Also read: Covishield and Covaxin: What we know about India's Covid-19 vaccines “In four months since the very first mass vaccination outside a clinical setting anywhere in the world, it is tremendously gratifying that the roll-out of COVAX doses has already reached one hundred countries,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Berkley said COVAX may be on track to deliver to all participating economies in the first half of the year yet they still face a daunting challenge as they seek to end the acute stage of the pandemic: they will only be safe when everybody is safe and our efforts to rapidly accelerate the volume of doses depend on the continued support of governments and vaccine manufacturers. “As we continue with the largest and most rapid global vaccine rollout in history, this is no time for complacency.” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General said COVAX has given the world the best way to ensure the fastest, most equitable rollout of safe and effective vaccines to all at-risk people in every country on the planet. Also read: ‘We sink or we swim together’: 5 things you need to know about COVAX “If we are going to realize this great opportunity, countries, producers and the international system must come together to prioritize vaccine supply through COVAX. Our collective future, literally, depends on it.” Dr Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) this is a significant milestone in the fight against COVID-19. “Faced with the rapid spread of COVID-19 variants, global access to vaccines is fundamentally important to reduce the prevalence of the disease, slow down viral mutation, and hasten the end of the pandemic.” “In just a month and a half, the ambition of granting countries access to COVID vaccines is becoming a reality, thanks to the outstanding work of our partners in the COVAX Facility,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “However, this is no time to celebrate; it is time to accelerate. With variants emerging all over the world, we need to speed up global rollout. To do this, we need governments, along with other partners, to take necessary steps to increase supply, including by simplifying barriers to intellectual property rights, eliminating direct and indirect measures that restrict exports of COVID-19 vaccines, and donating excess vaccine doses as quickly as possible.” Also read: WHO calls for prioritising vaccine contracts with COVAX According to its latest supply forecast, COVAX expects to deliver at least 2 billion doses of vaccines in 2021. In order to reach this goal, the COVAX Facility will continue to diversify its portfolio further, and will announce new agreements with vaccine manufacturers in due course. Furthermore, in March it was announced that the United States government will host the launch event for the 2021 Gavi COVAX AMC Invest Opportunity to catalyze further commitment and support for accelerated access to vaccines for AMC-supported economies. An additional US$ 2 billion is required in 2021 to finance and secure up to a total of 1.8 billion donor-funded doses of vaccines. COVAX is also working to secure additional sourcing of vaccines in the form of dose-sharing from higher income countries.

Buoyed by a surge in vaccine shipments, states and cities are rapidly expanding eligibility for COVID-19 shots to teachers, Americans 50 and over and others as the U.S. races to beat back the virus and reopen businesses and schools.

COVID-19 vaccine makers told Congress on Tuesday to expect a big jump in the delivery of doses over the coming month, and the companies insist they will be able to provide enough for most Americans to get inoculated by summer.

An ambitious humanitarian project to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest people is facing potential shortages of money, cargo planes, refrigeration and vaccines themselves — and is running into skepticism even from some of those it’s intended to help most.