A woman walks past a painting by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day before the inauguration of the COVID-19 vaccination unit on a street in Mumbai, India, on January 15, 2021.
Francis Mascarenhas | Reuters
A first meeting of leaders of the Quad group of countries on Friday is scheduled to announce funding agreements to support increased capacity to manufacture coronavirus vaccines in India, a senior US administration official told Reuters. USA.
The funding agreements will be between the United States, Japan and other countries and will focus especially on companies and institutions in India that manufacture vaccines for U.S. pharmacists Novavax and Johnson & Johnson, according to the official, who did not want to identify by his name.
The goal of the Quad initiative, which brings together the United States, India, Japan and Australia, would be to reduce manufacturing debris, speed up vaccination and defeat some coronavirus mutations, the official said.
“The idea is that the faster you can vaccinate, the more you can defeat some of these mutations. So it’s a capacity that will go online later this year and that will substantially increase our ability to vaccinate. Collectively, “he said.
Part of the additional vaccination capacity created in India would be used in vaccination efforts in Southeast Asian countries, the official added.
The White House announced earlier Tuesday that President Joe Biden will participate in an online quad meeting on Friday, the first group-level meeting considered part of efforts to balance China’s growing military and economic power. .
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she hoped a series of issues facing the global community would be discussed “from the threat of COVID, to economic cooperation and … the climate crisis.”
India has urged other Quad members to invest in their vaccine production capacity to try to counter China’s broad vaccine diplomacy.