The pace of vaccinations in India continues to drop as cases of COVID-19 in the country soar—a humanitarian crisis that makes the country vulnerable to counterfeit medicines and could also have wide-reaching supply-chain consequences around the world, say Northeastern scholars of supply chain management and criminology.
India, the second-most populous country in the world, is home to the Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing site responsible for supplying COVID-19 vaccines to a number of other countries around the world. The country is also the leading supplier in several other critical industries, including information technology support and generic drug manufacturing.
If SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, continues to surge, it could hobble businesses—and indeed economies—around the world, says Nada Sanders, university distinguished professor of supply chain management at Northeastern.
“The global economy, and the U.S. economy could see the ripple effects of this crisis as quickly as a month or two,” Sanders says.
