As the UK’s vaccination programme was “
knocked off course” due to a delay in receiving five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India, a far more chilling reality was unfolding:
about a third of all humanity, living in the poorest countries, found out that they will get almost no coronavirus vaccines in the near future because of India’s urgent need to vaccinate its own massive population.
It’s somewhat rich for figures in Britain to accuse
India of vaccine nationalism.
That the UK, which has vaccinated nearly 50% of its adults with at least one dose, should demand vaccines from India, which has only vaccinated 3% of its people so far, is immoral. That the UK has already received several million doses from
India, alongside other rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and Canada, is a travesty.
The billions of AstraZeneca doses being produced by the Serum Institute in India are not for rich countries – and, in fact, not even for India alone: they are for all 92 of the poorest countries in the world.
Except they’re now being treated as the sovereign property of the Indian government.
How did we get here? Exactly
one year ago, researchers at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, frontrunners in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, stated that they intended to allow any manufacturer, anywhere, the rights to their jab. One of the early licences they
signed was with the Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.
One month later, acting on advice from the Gates Foundation, Oxford changed course and signed over exclusive rights to AstraZeneca, a UK-based multinational pharmaceutical group
Now these things don't help all of a sudden. 
