NEW DELHI — Rajiv Nath’s factories were cranking out more than 7,600 syringes a minute when India decided to limit their export last month to shore up its own vaccination campaign. The products were meant for clients around the world as nations scramble to inoculate their people and bring the pandemic to an end, but instead Mr. Nath’s warehouses were left with stocks of more than 45 million syringes that he had largely promised to UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization. And with India’s export restrictions on syringes in place through the end of this year, experts say the world could experience a shortfall of two billion to four billion needles through the end of next year. The shortages are expected to hit African countries the hardest. “That will be truly disappointing,” said Prashant Yadav — a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Washington research organization, and an expert on health care supply chains — “that after having waited for over a year to get a reasonable quantity of vaccines, when they do obtain the vaccines, they don’t have syringes to administer them.”

Source: International New York Times November 18, 2021 10:30 UTC