Context: Recently, India and the U.S. plan to work together on vaccine research and testing for COVID-19, U.S. health officials said, listing a number of other ways in which the two countries are working together.
Key Points

• U.S. and Indian scientists have been collaborating on key research questions fostering the development and testing of safe, cost-effective vaccines against a range of infectious diseases that could save innumerable lives in India, the United States, and around the world.
• In the context of the current pandemic, partners under the Vaccine Action Programme (VAP) are planning to collaborate on the development and testing of vaccine candidates and diagnostics for COVID-19.
• The U.S announced a donation of 200 ventilators to India. The ventilators, which will be paid for by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), are part of the $5.9 million in funding announced till date for India.
• The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said it would separately fund the Government of India $3.6 million to support prevention, preparedness, and response activities in India, in collaboration with and concurrence from the GoI.

About Vaccine Action Programme (VAP)

• The VAP is also known as the Indo-U.S. Vaccine Action Program (VAP).
• It is a 33-year collaboration between the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Indian Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) along with other partners.
• The programme was designed to encompass laboratory-based research, evaluation of candidate vaccines, testing for clinical development, vaccine quality control, delivery of vaccines and so on.
• The programme is under implementation since July, 1987 under the Gandhi-Reagan Science & Technology Agreement.

Significance

• Major projects were initiated under VAP in the areas of rotaviral diarrhoea, dengue, viral hepatitis, acute respiratory infections, tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid, E. coli, leishmaniasis, pneumococcal, HIV/AIDS, etc.