VACCINE DIPLOMACY

Great powers China, Russia, and the United States from the beginning attributed huge diplomatic value to pioneering the global rollout of their vaccines. Unsurprisingly, a country's preference for diplomatic partners has a big influence whether its sources its vaccines from China, Russia, or the United States.

Indonesia and the Philippines are touting the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, while Vietnam and Malaysia are considering using Chinese vaccines. Brazil and Uzbekistan are simultaneously opting for vaccines from Russia and China.

The largest purchaser of Sputnik V is India with currently 100 million doses on order and India is amiong the countries that have agreed to produce Sputnik V on its territory (India is planning to produce 300 million doses of the vaccine in 2021. Mexico is  to import 7.4 million doses of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V from February and April 2021. Egypt and Nepal both have ordered 25 million doses. As of January 2021, Russia indicated that 1 billion orders had been placed worldwide for Sputnik V.

Meanwhile, the U.S. pharmaceutical producer Pfizer is reported to be supplying 14 pecent of the global population. Customers include Canada with a purchase of 40 million doses, the EU with 200 million doses and the UK with 40 million doses.

Vaccine diplomacy is not only the domain of global power competition. Regional powers are also joining as well. India is wooing South Asian nations against the backdrop of intensive competition with China's expanding regional dominance. India has directed domestically produced doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine to Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Myanmar, Mauritius, and Seychelles. 

Russia and China will stay committed with their promises to deliver vaccines at competitive prices worldwide. China is part of the COVAX global vaccine partnership aimed at making inoculations more available to less developed countries. The United States has recently expressed support for this initiative. 

The European Commission and the European Investment Bank are strong supporters of COVAX. Together with the EU Member States, Europe has so far allocated more than €850 million to COVAX, which makes the European Union COVAX's biggest donor. The European Commission and EIB's combined support of €500 million will enable COVAX to make one billion doses of vaccines available as rapidly as possible to people in low and middle income countries. The EU's €100 million grant and the €400 million EIB loan, backed by the EFSD guarantee, will support access, to COVID-19 vaccines in low and middle-income countries. The new €500 million European support for COVAX AMC will help COVAX reserve and accelerate doses for 92 low and middle income economies. Agreements between the European Union and partner countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific, as well as the eastern and southern neighbourhood, already exist under the European Fund for Sustainable Development. Vaccines will be procured and delivered by UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) on behalf of COVAX.