US says it's waiting for India's nod to dispatch COVID vaccine aids

Washington: The United States on Tuesday said that it will send COVID-19 vaccines aid to India after the Centre gives it a green light and clears legal hurdles for import, as per a PTI report.

According to reports, the Indian government has told the Americans that it needs further time to review legal provisions related to accepting vaccine donations.

"We are ready to ship those vaccines expeditiously when we have a green light from the Government of India," State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters at his daily news conference

The Biden Administration has announced to share 80 million doses from its domestic stockpile with countries around the world, including India. Among these, countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh have received the US vaccine

However, the US could not send the vaccines to India as the Indian government is yet to clear the necessary legal hurdles for such an emergency import.

He said that the donations of vaccines to India will proceed expeditiously as soon as India works through its legal processes.

"More broadly in the region, throughout South Asia, we're donating millions of vaccines to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Roughly 40 million doses have been delivered worldwide so far," he added.

Responding to another question, Price said that the COVID-19 cooperation between the two countries is built on decades of successful partnership in health and biomedical research.

"We are partnering to strengthen the global response to COVID-19 on issues ranging from addressing infectious disease outbreaks to strengthening health systems to securing global supply chains," he said.

"We recently welcomed an initiative to collaborate through the International Center of Excellence in Research focused on infectious diseases, and in this case that includes COVID-19 and other emerging threats. We look forward to an overarching MOU, a memorandum of understanding, to enhance health cooperation beyond that," he added.

The two countries are further working on diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines to combat the disease and to recognise the importance of manufacturing critical drugs during this time and to make them accessible globally.

"We are able to do that because India's pharmaceutical sector is strong, it's well-established, it has played a central role in manufacturing vaccines for global use over some time. We are pleased that US pharmaceutical companies, in turn, are coordinating with their Indian counterparts since the beginning of the pandemic," Price said.

"As you know, beyond this partnership, in the context of the Quad leaders' summit, there was an agreement to work with India to boost manufacturing of Covid vaccines that would support a safe and effective and eventually universal distribution of vaccines around the world," he said.