We have learned about the time when we were deprived of the world’s best medicines and vaccines. In the name of intellectual property rights, the global pharmaceutical lobby & developed countries let the world die of mass killing diseases. But, now when the world is still struggling with the Chinese coronas virus, Indian-made vaccines are proving to be one of the best antidotes and now the west has started to recognize this very fact.
Germany recognizes Indigenous vaccine
Fighting the monopolies of western pharmaceutical companies, Bharat Biotech made Covaxin has now been recognized by Germany. Announcing the same Ambassador of Germany to India, Walter J Lindner said that “very happy that the GER government just decided to recognize WHO-listed Covaxin for travels to GER, starting June 1”.
Covaxine is India’s indigenous Covid-19 vaccine made by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) and NIV (National Institute of Virology). According to the company, the vaccine has been “developed using Whole-Virion Inactivated Vero Cell-derived platform technology. Inactivated vaccines do not replicate and are therefore unlikely to revert and cause pathological effects. They contain dead viruses. Incapable of infecting people but still able to instruct the immune system to mount a defensive reaction against an infection”.
Read More: Comical: Calling Covaxin ‘Effective’, WHO suspends its supply
International Vaccine Politics
Even though Covaxin demonstrated 77.8% vaccine efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 disease and 93.4% efficacy against severe sympotic COVID-19 diseases, the WHO has followed lacklustre behavior in approving it.
Even after the approval, earlier in April the World Health Organisation further suspended the supply of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin to UN procurement agencies. Despite accepting the fact that the Covaxin is effective and there is no safety concern regarding its use, the organization citing the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) deficiencies, suspended the procurement.
Earlier, when the world was fighting the severe covid wave, the western countries tried to nationalize the vaccines and deprived the world of doses. But when the wave eased and the supply chain enhanced with an increase in production, once again the vaccine giant of the west tried to encash the situation. And, to do this, without proper trial and test of the respective vaccines they were trying to sell them to third world countries.
Read More: Bharat Biotech demolishes fake news against Covaxin by naming and shaming the culprits
It was the arm-twisting and great power politics of the WHO, which diluted the regulatory standards approved for the Chinese and western country’s vaccines. Moreover, the uneven, biased, and discriminatory policies taken in approval of vaccines not only cost the world but also their own domestic countries which are still struggling to control the virus.
Further, the Indian vaccines are proving to be one of the most efficacious against the virus. Till now, India has supplied country-made vaccines to around 100 countries in the world. Mostly in African, South Asian, and South American countries and all of them are slowly healing from the virus wave. But the west, which is supposed to be the global powerhouse of research & development, is still struggling to control the virus.
