How to manufacture and deliver vaccines for the entire world is a challenge. India and South Africa had proposed waiving intellectual property rights on Covid vaccines, much to the alarm of pharma companies. The US is in favour, the EU is not. Economic recovery from the pandemic, through sustained liquidity and fiscal support, was another theme. A global infrastructure drive that would offer developing countries an alternative to walking into the debt trap that China presents via its Belt and Road Initiative. China has put billions into associated loans, with covenants in small print that say that failure to service the loan would transfer the financed to service the loan would transfer the financed asset to Chinese ownership, as with Sri Lanka's Hambantota port. Warning authoritarian regimes was another part of the agenda. Under this, China has been called upon to stop its human rights violations in its Muslim enclave of Xinjiang, and Russia has been asked to take action against cyber criminals based there. Not on vaccines. The world needs 11-13 billion vaccine doses. G7 has promised, in all, 2 billion. There was no decision to waive IPR on vaccines, so that developing world pharma could replicate Pfizer type vaccines. This is the big disappointment. Yes India is well-placed to mass-manufacture vaccines and make good the global deficit. It should offer its vaccine knowhow to the world, and reverse engineer select vaccines and their ingredients in the country. It should invite biotech leaders from around the world to set up startups, give them seed capital, pre-purchase commitments and legal insulation from developed-world pharma companies, which will cry foul. Krishn helps only when we immerse our ahamkar, ego, that I can manage I will do it and come to the point of "Sharanagat bhav.
