The BRICS’ lagging vaccine diplomacy

The BRICS nations failed to mount a unified response to the COVID-19 pandemic, characterized by inconsistent vaccine adoption and delayed consensus on intellectual property waivers. Despite the high disease burden in India and Brazil, and the production capacity of India and South Africa, the bloc's 'lukewarm cooperation' has undermined its goal of reforming global governance.

• The BRICS countries experienced a severe pandemic impact, with India recording 32.2 million infections and Brazil reporting 20.3 million cases at the time of writing. Together, Brazil and India accounted for 80% of the 1.25 million total COVID-19 deaths across the five member nations.
• Cooperation on vaccine adoption within the bloc has been inconsistent. Russia's Sputnik V vaccine was imported by India (125 million doses in May 2021) and Brazil (928,000 doses in June 2021), but remained unapproved by South Africa's health regulator. Conversely, while South Africa approved China's Sinovac vaccine in July 2021, it had not yet announced procurement plans.
• Despite significant manufacturing capabilities, internal vaccination rates remained low. India, which provides 50% of global vaccine supplies, had fully vaccinated only 8.8% of its population. In South Africa, only 6.9% were fully vaccinated, though the Biovac company was scheduled to begin manufacturing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in 2022 for African distribution.
• The BRICS bloc showed delayed and divided support for a World Trade Organization proposal to waive intellectual-property rights for COVID-19 technologies. Although led by India and South Africa in October 2020, the group did not reach collective support until June 2021; Brazil initially opposed the idea in alignment with the administration of Donald Trump.

APA

South African Institute of International Affairs (2021). The BRICS’ lagging vaccine diplomacy. https://saiia.org.za/research/the-brics-lagging-vaccine-diplomacy/

Chicago

South African Institute of International Affairs. The BRICS’ lagging vaccine diplomacy. 2021. https://saiia.org.za/research/the-brics-lagging-vaccine-diplomacy/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=South African Institute of International Affairs |title=The BRICS’ lagging vaccine diplomacy |date=19 August 2021 |url=https://saiia.org.za/research/the-brics-lagging-vaccine-diplomacy/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{southafricaninstituteofinternationalaffairs2021brics, author = {{South African Institute of International Affairs}}, title = {{The BRICS’ lagging vaccine diplomacy}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2021}, month = aug, url = {https://saiia.org.za/research/the-brics-lagging-vaccine-diplomacy/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }