So the over-hyped vaccines powerhouse India can't manufacture vaccines without raw materials from the US and China.
As a manufacturing giant, India has sought to portray itself as a generous benefactor through targeted vaccine diplomacy, while seeking to outdo regional rival China. At the same time, New Delhi has tightly controlled the deployment of the doses it has, mostly supplied by Serum, which is making the shot developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Oxford University.
Indian officials have also requested more vaccines than initially expected from the company, said Poonawalla.
"We had to dedicate a lot of our capacity, which was not originally planned for India," he said.
"We're trying to balance it out as much as possible, but again for the first few months we have been directed to prioritise supplies to India and certain other countries that have a high disease burden."
Daunting Gap Covax has been slow to get off the ground, which WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has linked to companies and countries prioritising bilateral deals ahead of the health body's approval process.
Poonawalla reiterated his concerns over impending bottlenecks caused by "raw materials nationalism" after the US invoked the Defense Production Act this month to safeguard supplies of items, such as bags and filters, for its own manufacturers.
"I've sent this message to all the decision makers in the U.S. - please do not put a ban on critical raw materials that other global vaccine manufacturers need," Poonawalla said.
