Made-in-India COVID drugs emerge as life-savers in China, but a Chinese film had predicted so in 2018

Remember the 2011 film Contagion starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, among others, and how close the flick had come to portraying what the world actually faced when struck by the COVID pandemic, but that was not the last movie to have predicted a doomsday scenario.

It would only be fair to say that Dying to Survive, a film from 2018, was also quite farsighted in its telling of a future happening. The Chinese comedy-drama starring Xu Zheng, takes inspiration from a true story — of a Chinese leukemia patient Lu Yong who smuggled cheap and generic cancer medicine from India for about 1,000 cancer patients in 2004. In the film, as the protagonist struggles to afford expensive medicines for his father, who urgently needs a brain surgery, he comes to know of a cheaper alternative to the expensive Swiss drug, in India. In desperate need for money, he devises a plan to smuggle the drug to China. In his quest to save his father’s life, he also becomes rich since financially-pressed cancer patients start buying the drug from him in the hope of living a cancer-free life. India: Pharmacy of the World

Almost four years later, in a covid-inflicted world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would go on calling the India ‘Pharmacy of the World’, given its immense contribution in developing vaccines and supplying medicines to parts of the world. During the Davos summit earlier this year, PM Modi had stated how India was the “third-largest pharma-producer in the world” adding that the country saved lives during the pandemic by supplying essential medicines and vaccines during the ‘One Earth One Health’ vision. The India’s Department of Pharmaceuticals’ annual report of 2020-21 states that India is the largest producer of generic drugs globally and has the second highest number of US FDA approved plants outside the US. It further states that India’s pharmaceutical sector forms a major component of the country’s foreign trade, with attractive avenues and opportunities for investors. According to Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), Indian drug & pharmaceutical exports stood at $ 24.60 billion in FY22 and $ 24.44 billion in FY21. There has also been an enhanced foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow in the Indian drugs and pharmaceuticals sector that reached $ 19.90 billion between April 2000 - June 2022, according to IBEF. Made-in-India vaccines prove their worth When it came to developing vaccines for the raging pandemic, India again secured the spot as it led with its Covaxin that was prepared by Hyderabad- based Bharat Biotech International Ltd. in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology (NIV) and ICMR and Covishield, that was developed by the SII, Oxford University, and AstraZeneca. Now the country prepares for the rollout of nasal vaccine as India’s technical expert committee on immunisation has recommended the use of Bharat Biotech’s nasal vaccine as a booster for adults. Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya recently shared that the roll-out could happen as soon as next week. With the return of covid in China, India has also been playing an instrumental role in bridging the medicinal shortage gap. India has announced that it will help China with fever medicines to fight the Omicron sub-variant BF 7. India’s role in being the ‘pharmacy of the world’ has also been evident through its various partnerships. According to Observer Research Foundation, in 2021, India and US, elevated their relationship to a ‘comprehensive global strategic partnership’ from a ‘strategic partnership’ in 2004. When the world was stuck by a deadly third covid wave last year, covid-19 vaccine cooperation expanded with the announcement that one billion vaccines in Asia would be distributed through the Quad — or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue of Australia, India, Japan, and the US. About one billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured locally by the Serum Institute of India as Covishield , were exported by the end of 2021, states ORF. As India’s contribution to the world of medicine continues to expand, it is only a matter of time that it becomes a leader in global-drug supply security and movies are produced across the world on dystopian scenarios of the end of the world, but about India’s actual contribution to the health of the world. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .