Vaccine procurement, particularly from the 80 million doses that the Americans have pledged to release into the global pool, and stepping up production in India were top on external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s US visit, but there was no announcement forthcoming from either side after a series of meetings over the past couple of days.

Ever since the US announced that it would share 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured in the country with the world and also place an additional 20 million of its other Covid vaccines in the global stockpile, India has been hoping to get a sizeable share given the crisis it is facing.

When Jaishankar was asked by reporters in Washington if it was discussed, he said it was at a “conceptual level’’ but indicated that it was a decision for the US to take.

Earlier this week, sources in New Delhi had said India was not expecting any announcement during the visit as the Americans had said they would reveal their distribution plans by July 4.

In a related briefing on the meeting, US acting assistant secretary in the state department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Dean Thompson, said in reply to a question on vaccine procurement by India: “I’m not going to get into the very specific angles of what was discussed but certainly vaccine manufacture, procurement, delivery — the larger question of how we can cooperate together… — were covered today.”

During the Quad summit in March, a Vaccine Initiative had been announced which envisaged the pooling of individual capacities in the four member countries to expedite global delivery. As part of this, India is to manufacture vaccines developed in the US.

Since then, India’s claim to being the pharmacy of the world has taken a severe beating as the country’s own Covid inoculation programme has faltered due to shortage of vaccines, forcing New Delhi to ban exports which, in turn, has impacted immunisation in several countries.

Pressed again for details of the distribution of the 80 million vaccines the US plans to share with the world, Thompson said: “Final decisions are still pending and discussions and work are still underway to determine how and where those will be done. There will be a combination of efforts with Covax and with our partners as we go forward. But those efforts are still underway.”

Covax is a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines.

As for the indemnity issue that pharma companies are insisting upon from any claims for adverse side effects, Indian external affairs ministry sources maintained that their ministry was not the nodal agency for this.

Asked in the US, Jaishankar also said as much — that these discussions are going on between the companies concerned and those authorised in India to negotiate with them.