First obligation is to Americans: US on India's request for vaccine raw material

It is in the worlds interest that Americans are vaccinated and the US has to first to take care of the requirements of its own people State Department Spokesperson Ned Price has said about Washingtons restrictions on exporting raw materials for making the Covid19 vaccinesAsked at his briefing on Thursday if President Joe Bidens administration had made a decision on the requests made from India to lift the ban on the export of vaccine raw materials to India Price said bluntly We have a special responsibility to the American peopleIts of course not only in our interest to see Americans vaccinated its in the interests of the rest of the world to see Americans vaccinated he addedAs for the rest of the world We will of course always do as much as we can consistent with our first obligation he declaredUS Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Indias External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar discussed Covid19 and health cooperation last week and it had opened the possibility of Washington allowing vaccine raw materials to be exportedEarlier this month Serum Institute of India SII CEO Adar Poonawala appealed to Biden to allow the exports of vaccine raw materials If we are to truly unite in beating this virus on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the US I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the US so that vaccine production can ramp up he tweetedPrice first tried to sidetrack the issue of restrictions on vaccine raw materials exports by claiming that the reporter had asked about intellectual property rights for vaccines and that it was a matter for the US Trade Representative USTRBut the reporter from a Western news service had in fact asked only about the raw materialsThe question clearly was We reported that they India have asked the US to lift a ban on the export of vaccine raw materials which basically threatens to slow the countrys vaccination drive When will the administration decide on thatPrice said You asked about intellectual property and certain controls That was is within the purview of USTRThe export controls do not in fact come under the jurisdiction of the USTR which deals only with the matters of intellectual property rightsThe Defence Production Act that has been invoked to boost vaccine production in the US is reported to curtail the export of raw materials needed elsewherePrice then said What I will say broadly is that the US first and foremost is engaged in an ambitious and effective and so far successful effort to vaccinate the American people That campaign is well underway and were doing that for a couple of reasonsNumber one we have a special responsibility to the American people Number two the American people this country has been hit harder than any other country around the world more than 550000 deaths tens of millions of infections in this country alone he saidBut Price conceded that the spread of the virus elsewhere is also a threat to everyoneThe point the Secretary Blinken has made repeatedly is that as long as the virus is spreading anywhere it is a threat to people everywhereBut support his point about the America First vaccination policy he added So as long as the virus is spreading uncontrolled in this country it can mutate and it can travel beyond our borders That in turn poses a threat well beyond the USPrice asserted that the US playing a leadership role in seeking to contain the virus beyond our borders He cited the US rejoining the World Health Organisation and Washingtons contribution of 2 billion to the COVAX facility that provides vaccines to developing countries and the promise of 2 billion more to itHe also said that the US was sending vaccines to its neighbours Canada and MexicoHe said When it comes to India there is the the Quad and the arrangement with the Quad including to increase production capacity in IndiaThe leaders of the Quad Biden and Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India Yoshihide Suga of Japan and Scott Morrison of Australia had agreed at their summit last month on a joint programme to supply Covid19 vaccines to countries in the IndoPacificThe vaccines manufactured by India with US and Japanese funding would be distributed with Australian logistics under the programmeBidens Spokesperson Jen Psaki last week also sidestepped a question about lifting the ban on vaccine raw materials speaking instead about the reaction of USTR Katherine Tai to the request from India and South Africa for waiving the intellectual property rights for the vaccineWhile not committing to waiver of intellectual property rights Tai had given a hint of optimism saying that the inequities in the developing countries access to vaccines was unacceptable and extraordinary times require extraordinary leadership communication and creativityIndia has become the worlds main supplier of vaccines because of the license granted to SII by Oxford and AstraZeneca for the vaccine developed by themThis story has been sourced from a third party 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