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NEW DELHI (AP) — The Indian city of Pune is running out of ventilators as gasping coronavirus patients crowd its hospitals. Social media is full of people searching for beds, while relatives throng pharmacies looking for antiviral medicines that hospitals ran out of long ago.
The surge, which can be seen across India, is particularly alarming because the country is a major vaccine producer and a critical supplier to the U.N.-backed COVAX initiative. That program aims to bring shots to some of the world’s poorest countries. Already the rise in cases has forced India to focus on satisfying its domestic demand — and delay deliveries to COVAX and elsewhere, including the United Kingdom and Canada.
India said Tuesday that it would authorize a slew of new vaccines, but experts said that the decision was unlikely to have any immediate impact on supplies available in the country. For now, its focus on domestic needs “means there is very little, if anything, left for COVAX and everybody else,” said Brook Baker, a vaccines expert at Northeastern University.
Pune is India’s hardest-hit city, but other major metropolises are also in crisis, as daily new infections hit record levels, and experts say that missteps stemming from the belief that the pandemic was “over” are coming back to haunt the country. ...
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India moved Tuesday to expand the number of vaccines available, by authorizing the use of all coronavirus shots that have been given an emergency nod by the World Health Organization or regulators in the United States, Europe, Britain or Japan. Indian regulators also OK’d Russia’s Sputnik V for emergency use.
Worries about vaccine supplies have led to criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has exported 64.5 million doses to other nations. Rahul Gandhi, the face of the main opposition Congress party, asked Modi in a letter whether the government’s export strategy was “an effort to garner publicity at the cost of our own citizens.”
Now, India has reversed course. Last month, COVAX said shipments of up to 90 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines were delayed because the Serum Institute of India decided to prioritize domestic needs. ...
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