Biden administration diverts pending orders with US firms for vaccine raw material to India

The US had earlier invoked the DPA to impose restrictions on export of some raw materials required for production of Covid-19 vaccines

US President Joe Biden’s administration has diverted its pending orders with the United States' companies for filters required for production of vaccines to India in order to help augment production of the Covid-19 vaccine in the South Asian nation.

“Now here’s what we did yesterday: we diverted our pending orders of vaccine filters to India’s vaccine manufacturing effort. This will help India make more vaccine,” Tim Manning, White House Covid-19 supply coordinator posted on Twitter.

The Biden Administration had earlier this year invoked the US Defence Production Act (DPA) to impose restrictions on export of some raw materials required for production of the Covid-19 vaccines. The move was aimed at ramping up production and increasing availability of the vaccines in the US. But it also slowed down production of the vaccines in India.

Read | Covid-19 situation in India 'beyond heartbreaking': WHO chief

Manning, however, said that though the Biden administration had invoked the US Defence Production Act, it had never banned export of the raw materials required for production of the vaccines.

“To make vaccine here in the US, we have used the DPA (Defence Production Act) to ensure we have access to all needed supplies with many US companies. DPA in these cases just means US companies must prioritise their government contracts ahead of other orders, it doesn’t mean an export ban,” he tweeted, adding that the use of the DPA did not mean a ‘de facto’ ban on export and the US companies remained free to export. “In fact, companies that supply our vaccine manufacturing, export their product all across the world. We are just one ‘client’ of the raw material companies,” he added.

He also argued that the Biden administration’s move to invoke the US Defence Production Act did not create shortages. “There is just more global manufacturing happening everywhere than the suppliers can support,” noted the White House Covid-19 supply coordinator.

Adar Poonawala, the Chief Executive Officer of the Serum Institute of India, had a few days back taken to Twitter to urge the US government to lift the embargo on export of raw materials required to make vaccines in India – like reagents, plastic tubing material, nano-filters and bioreactor bags.

The SII is producing the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University – known as Covishield in India.

The US started easing the restrictions in the wake of the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India.