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As the global community struggles to reset the society and the economy by putting behind the scourge of COVID-19, it is amply clear that the only effective way of realising this objective is by ensuring affordable vaccines for every citizen. However, access to affordable vaccines has emerged as a major challenge for two reasons. First, several developed countries have stocked vaccines well in excess of their requirements, thus indulging in a practice that can best be described as "vaccine nationalism". Secondly, even in the midst of one of the worst pandemics affecting the humankind, several companies are exercising their market power, by leveraging, among others, their intellectual property rights (IPRs) over the vaccines. Vaccine diplomacy is also the flavour of the day. Even as developed countries flounder in dealing with COVID 19, countries like China and India, who have seemingly handled the situation better, have stepped in to fill the breach. They are going out of their way to provide developing countries the COVID vaccine, often on a grant basis and building up a stock of diplomatic goodwill.