By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – India delayed committing vaccine supplies to COVAX global share platform. This was Tuesday after WHO’s key supporter said that the WHO could not approve a vaccine developed in India.

For the first time in April, the largest global vaccine producer resumed COVID-19 exports. The company has shipped approximately 4 million doses to neighboring countries like Iran and Bangladesh, but not to COVAX.

The World Health Organization (WHO), in preparation for an Oct. 26 meeting about Covaxin in India, said Monday that it couldn’t “cut corners” with its approval decision.

Sources said that it was frustrating for India to not confirm supply of COVAX despite promises made last month by health ministers to fulfill the COVAX commitment in the quarter up to December.

Sources briefed about the talks on export declined to identify themselves as they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter.

The Serum Institute of India (“SII”), world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, has contracted to provide hundreds of million of doses of licensed AstraZeneca (NASDAQ) vaccine to COVAX.

The vaccine’s production has tripled in April to 220,000,000 doses per month.

India’s Indian Health Ministry (SII) and COVAX coleads, WHO and GAVI didn’t respond to inquiries for comment.

COVAX delays could result in the suspension of inoculation drives for many African nations who rely on COVAX to provide vaccines.

Indian officials stated they were confident that the WHO would soon authorize an emergency-use list for Covaxin. It accounts for 11% in the estimated 990,000,000 vaccine doses administered to India. Most of the remainder are from AstraZeneca.

Adar Poonawalla was the SII chief executive and told The Telegraph newspaper that his firm would resume exports in October to COVAX.

He said that although initially these supplies would be limited, they will increase in size once domestic demand is satisfied by January 2022.

India stopped overseas vaccine shipment in April because it was unable to supply domestic demand. However, the country donated and sold more than 666 million COVID-19 dosages.