EVENTS

As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged India, the importance of availability, accessibility and distribution of the vaccine gained visibility. The major producers of the Covid-19 vaccine are India, China, United States, UK and Russia. Except the United States all other major producers have exported vaccines to several developing countries. Several developed countries have pursued policies of vaccine nationalism thereby undermining the importance of vaccine equity. Both China and Russia have managed to strike a balance between their domestic demand and exports of vaccines. However, India, which is the largest producer of vaccines, has failed to meet both the domestic demand and export obligations. This talk will focus and highlight the recent debates on vaccine nationalism and equity.

About the Speakers

Sujatha Rao, is a former Union Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Ms. Rao has occupied several important positions that include the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM); the Bill & Melinda Gates and the Public Health Foundation of India. She was a Takemi Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health 2001-2002 and Gro Harlem Brundtland Senior Leadership Fellow at HSPH in 2012. She has several articles in journals and is author of the book entitled Do We Care? India's Health System (2016), published by Oxford University Press.

Biswajit Dhar is Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. He was the director of Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi and also the Professor and Head of the Centre for WTO Studies in the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. His research has focussed on trade policy issues, particularly in the context of the multilateral trading system. Dr. Dhar has been working extensively with a number of intergovernmental organizations including UNDP, UNESCAP, FAO, and UNCTAD, taking up issues related to the functioning of the global trading system. He has authored and co-authored numerous texts on various issues related to trade and development.

E Kumar Sharma is Deputy Editor, FE Digital, The Indian Express Group. Earlier he was Senior Editor, Business Today, The India Today Group. He is a Polestar award recipient in journalism, formerly a research fellow at UPenn, USA as the C V Starr scholar and a Chevening Scholar, UK and with a stint at the BBC Television, reporting out of London. His areas of interest are wide ranging, in keeping with the demands of curious readers, ranging from medicine to micro-credit, finances to family-led businesses, information technology to infrastructure, education to economy.

About the Chair

Rama V. Baru is Professor at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and an Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, India. She is also an Honorary Professor at the India Studies Centre, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China. Her major areas of research interest include commercialisation of health services, infectious diseases, comparative health systems and health inequalities. She is a recipient of the Balzan Fellowship at the University College London and the Yusuf Hamied Fellowship from Columbia University, New York. She has several books and publications to her name.

Event Registration Link here