The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said that the vaccine production capacity of India is one of the best assets the world has today and also said that he hopes the world understands that it must be fully used. The Secretary-General’s observations were made while addressing a press conference on his Priorities for 2021 in New York on 28 January.
Guterres also said that India has a very high level of production of both Indian developed vaccines as it has one of the most advanced pharmaceutical industries.
Guterres was answering questions from journalists in New York while outlining his Priorities for 2021. His comments were made while answering a question from PTI journalist Yoshita Singh on the initiative by India to help countries around the world in the fight against the global pandemic. The Secretary-General answered the question in detail and also spoke of the role of India in democratisation of access to medicines in the world.
“India played a very important role in the production of generics for use that was outside… a very important element of democratisation of access to medicines all over the world”, he said in his answer. In this respect he said he appeals once again for licenses to be made available in order for companies around the world to be able to produce some of the vaccines that already exist.
It was in this direction he said that India has a very high level of production of vaccines and the UN is in contact with Indian institutions for that. “We strongly hope that India will have all the instruments that are necessary to play a major role in making sure that a global vaccination campaign becomes possible”, he said.
Calling on the world to utilise India’s production capacity of vaccines, Guterres said “I think that the production capacity of India is one of the best assets the world has today, and I hope the world understands that it must be fully used”.
Dr. Niranjan B Poojar 
Balaji Subramanian