Biden administration officials are coming under increasing pressure to lift restrictions on exports of supplies that vaccine makers in India say they need to expand production amid a devastating surge in Covid-19 deaths there.

Funeral pyres have lit up the night sky in the worst affected cities, and the country has set a new global record of 350,000 new infections a day, which experts say could be a vast undercount.

The State Department spokesman, Ned Price, said in response to questions about the export ban that “the United States first and foremost is engaged in an ambitious and effective and, so far, successful effort to vaccinate the American people.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/climate/inda-covid-vaccines.html

“By stockpiling vaccines & blocking the export of crucial raw materials needed for vaccine production, the United States is undermining the strategic Indo-US partnership,” Milind Deora, a politician from Mumbai, one of the hardest-hit cities, said on Twitter.

The contrast with the American tone on climate diplomacy was stark.

“This is pathetic. Is this what the U.S.’ “leadership” in the climate crisis will look like?” Ulka Kelkar, director of the climate program at the India office of the World Resources Institute, a research and advocacy group, said in a Twitter message. “Spare us the talking points.”

Vaccine production has lagged behind the needs of India’s population of 1.2 billion people. Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of Serum Institute of India, a vaccine manufacturer, appealed to Mr. Biden in mid-April to “lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up.” His company this week faced criticism in India for the high price of its vaccines.

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