World’s largest vaccine maker India has now started supplying Coronavirus vaccine shots to its neighboring countries that can’t produce them.
According to Reuters, India has begun supplying doses of the Coronavirus vaccine to its neighbors. It’s doing it for the nations without the capacity to produce their shots.
The process of supplying the shots to other countries began on Wednesday.
Coronavirus: How’s India performing?
On Wednesday, the country Foreign Ministry of the country said that it would send 150,000 AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine shots to Bhutan. Serum Institute of India produced them locally. And 100,000 shots are being sent to the Maldives.
In the coming weeks, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Seychelles will also receive the vaccine, said the ministry.
Anurag Srivastava, Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, also said that they would check their stocks. Domestic makers want to ensure they have enough shots for the people of India as well.
“India will continue to supply countries all over the world with vaccines. This will be calibrated against domestic requirements and international demand and obligations,” said Mr. Srivastava.
Just a few days ago, regulators in the country approved two Coronavirus vaccines for emergency use. While one is AstraZeneca, the other one is from the domestic maker Bharat Biotech.
Last week, India also began vaccinating its population, from Jan. 17, on a broader level. The goal is to give shots to 300 million of its 1.4 billion citizens.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministry also clarified that its supply of vaccine to the neighbors is not a part of the COVAX initiative by the U.N. The step is aimed at providing vaccine doses to lower-income nations across the globe.
As per the reports, around 12 billion vaccine doses will be produced this year. And wealthy countries have already bought 9 million out of the total count. Thus, the Serum Institute of India is likely to make most of the developing nations’ shots.
Is a universal vaccine ready?
Amid a lot of efforts of vaccinating as many individuals as possible, there’s still confusion regarding the effectiveness of produced doses. Many people still don’t believe that the vaccine shots are impactful. Although India is making many shots, its population is still in doubt over them. The government, however, is trying its best to win the confidence of its citizens.
Since every country is making its version, confusion is obvious to arise. Some of the nations are depending on each other instead of coming out with their cures. But with the new variant of Coronavirus spreading rapidly, concern among the people will only increase further.
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