WASHINGTON: First meeting of the Quad group of countries on Friday, March 10, has plans to announce the financing agreements to support the increase in manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 vaccines in India, senior official said. The agreement will be among United States of America (USA), Japan and others. It will focus on the companies and institutions in India which are manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccines for Novavax Inc and Johnson and Johnson, American drug makers.
The aim of the Quad meet would be to reduce manufacturing backlogs, speed vaccination and defeating the novel coronavirus mutations, the official said. He added that the idea is that in order to defeat the mutations in the novel coronavirus, the vaccination speed needs to be picked up. Some of the additional vaccine capacity which is created in India will be used for vaccination efforts in Southeast Asian countries, he added.
India has also asked the Quad members to invest in the vaccine production of the country to counte the China’s widening vaccine diplomacy.