Mike Pompeo says the US and India are jointly working on COVID-19 vaccine

The United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, stated that the US and India are working together to find effective therapies and vaccines for COVID-19. He also said that this collaboration would ensure enough access to materials such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) andhydroxychloroquine medicines (HCQ) for both the countries. “We (the US and India) continue to talk about the bigger issues, free and open Indo-Pacific, the challenge of China and trade,” added Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State.

The US Secretary of State also pointed out that India and the United States are in collaboration beyond finding vaccines for COVID-19. “We’re paying attention to supply chains. We want to mesh the supply chains both countries have access to in areas that are important for our national security,”, stated Mike Pompeo.

Talking about the US President Donald Trump’s decision to stop funding the World Health Organisation (WHO), Mike Pompeo said “We are demanding that institutions that have missions are doing what they should be. WHO has not lived up to the values it was set up for.” Mike Pompeo also added that his conversations with other counterparts from around the world also implies a general agreement that there were significant shortcomings in World Health Organisation (WHO), both in their regulatory and humanitarian assistance functions. Pompeo also said “We need data and we need facts” on holding China and WHO responsible for not communicating about the origin of the novel coronavirus, and also how China handled the situation.

The US Secretary of State also said that China had committed a blunder by not providing enough information on the novel virus. The lack of information has made the condition very challenging. Mike Pompeo also added that before China revealed any information about the virus, a lot of travel from Wuhan to various parts of the world already happened, with Italy and Iran being early spots.

Countries like the United States, Japan and India are already showing growing interests in reducing the dependency on China. Recently, Japan has committed over $2 billion to diversify from China.

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