- By Anton Grillo
- (General Dispatch) – India is leading the way in shipping vaccines to 82 countries through “Vaccine Maitri”, a humanitarian initiative of the Indian government to supply the vaccine created in the country.
- The program has managed to ship around 64 million vaccines to a large number of countries, after receiving money for the development of its vaccine candidate, apart from commercial contracts and entry into COVAX.
- The Covid-19 Global Access Fund for Vaccines (COVAX) is a partnership of public and private institutions that aims to deliver vaccines to the poorest nations.
- India started its “Vaccine Maitri” program on January 20, the two vaccines to be exported are from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals and state-owned Bharat Biotech. The first destinations for the first batch of doses are Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Seychelles, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Fiji.
- Fiji’s prime minister thanked his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi for supplying 100,000 doses of vaccines, and said it is a great step for the nation to incentivize this program by defeating the bureaucracy that exists in the world’s richest countries.
- India’s Serum Institute is one of the largest vaccine manufacturers AstraZeneca in the world, along with this program hopes to meet much of the demand in developing countries.
- “Of the more than 12 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines being produced this year, rich countries have already bought about 9 billion and many have options to buy even more. This means that the Serum Institute [of India], which has been contracted by AstraZeneca to produce 1 billion doses, will likely make most of the injections that developing countries will use,” the Associated Press said earlier this year.
- The Indian government is planning how it will deliver a second dose, while it reached an agreement with the quad countries (US, India, Japan and Australia) at the leadership summit to increase production of the doses for distribution to the Indo-Pacific region.
Adittional Information:
Breitbart: India Has Attracted 80 Countries Buying Vaccines, Rivaling Chinese Push
WION: India sends COVID-19 vaccines to over 80 countries, Fiji the latest entrant
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