Quad-supported vaccine roll-out to begin in first half

Mumbai: The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines that are part of the Quad group of countries’ pledge to donate shots across the world, manufactured by India’s Biological E, will roll out in the first half of 2022, the grouping said in a statement on Friday.

Last year, Australia, Japan, India and the United States, the grouping known as the Quad, promised to supply more than a billion COVID-19 vaccines worldwide by the end of 2022.

“We are pleased with the Quad Vaccine Partnerships rapid progress in expanding vaccine production at the Biological E Ltd facility in India, which aims to deliver at least 1 billion vaccines by the end of 2022,” a statement released after a meeting of Quad foreign ministers in the Australian city of Melbourne on Friday said.

The statement did not specify quantities of vaccines, nor to which countries they would go to.

In September last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Quad leaders that the country, the largest producers of vaccines in the world, would allow the export of 8 million COVID-19 vaccines by end of October 2021.

The country, hit by a devastating second wave of the coronavirus, stopped vaccine exports for most of 2021 as it scrambled to inoculate its 950 million adult population.

“We are assisting to train healthcare workers, combat vaccine hesitancy and augment infrastructure, especially cold chain systems, for last mile vaccine delivery,” the Quad leaders said in the statement.

The foreign ministers of the Quad group also promised to increase cooperation on COVID-19, cyber threats and counter-terrorism.

In a joint statement, they vowed to work on humanitarian relief, disaster assistance and the delivery of infrastructure to the region, and condemned North Korea’s “destabilising ballistic missile launches” in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

They said their informal Quad grouping was determined to deepen engagement with regional partners, and increase their capacity to combat unregulated and illegal fishing.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels onwards to Fiji on Saturday to meet with Pacific island leaders to whom fishing and climate change are likely to be priority issues.

“We agreed to boost maritime security support for Indo Pacific partners to strengthen their maritime domain awareness and ability to develop their offshore resources, to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight and to combat challenges such as illegal fishing,” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said after the meeting.