INDIA is winning praise for making thousands of vaccine shots available to poorer nations even as several rich nations are being accused of hoarding supplies.
India is now supplying tens of thousands of free COVID-19 shots to Caribbean countries left behind by rich nations in the race to procure vaccines, according to a Bloomberg report. The Indian Government has already “gifted” or sold millions of doses to neighbouring countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Seychelles and the Maldives. The Indian-made shots offer poorer countries an alternative to Chinese vaccines, which Beijing has been pushing across the region.
The External Affairs Ministry said it plans to supply vaccines — mostly free of charge — to 49 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.
So far, India has distributed 22.9 million doses under its “Vaccine Friendship” programme out of which 6.47 million doses have been supplied as a grant. On Thursday, Dominican Republic Interior Minister, Raquel Pena, said that India had donated 30,000 doses to her country. That’s on the heels of the 70,000 doses India donated to Dominica — enough to vaccinate the whole population — and 100,000 it provided to Barbados earlier this month. India has also promised to gift 200,000 doses to UN peacekeepers around the world.

GLOBAL PRAISE

India’s vaccine diplomacy has garnered widespread praise from international media as well as several global leaders. “India has emerged the surprise leader of the global vaccine diplomacy race. It has exported three times more doses than it’s given its own citizens and can spare even more without hurting its own rollout”, Eric Bellman of Wall Street Journal said in a recent tweet. The New York Times said in a report, “India, the unmatched vaccine manufacturing power, is giving away millions of doses to neighbours friendly and estranged”. “It is trying to counter China, which has made doling out shots a central plank of its foreign relations. And the United Arab Emirates, drawing on its oil riches, is buying jabs on behalf of its allies,” NYT said in a report. “India had stood by Bangladesh during the (1971) Liberation War, and today, when the pandemic is rattling the world, India again came with gifts of vaccines,” Bangladesh foreign minister had said after receiving the shipment from India. Nepal’s Minister for Health and Population, Hridayesh Tripathi, had said that India has shown goodwill by providing the vaccine in grant.
Mohamed Nasheed, Maldives’ Speaker of People’s Majlis (Parliament), had thanked India for its “gift”, adding that New Delhi has always been Male’s first responder and dependable friend.

MADE-IN-INDIA JABS

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India is planning to make available many more COVID-19 vaccines to other countries.
“Today by sending vaccines to various countries… we are saving the lives of citizens in other countries also,” Modi had said in his address to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. “In the future we will have many more vaccines. India’s upcoming vaccines will help other countries to fight the pandemic.”

BILLIONS OF SHOTS

Indian companies have promised to produce billions of COVID-19 shots this year alone.
The world’s biggest overall vaccine producer, India has approved for emergency use Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine developed with the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research, and Covishield, developed by Oxford University-AstraZeneca and produced locally by Serum Institute of India (SII).
About 60 per cent of global vaccine production comes from India, making it the largest producer of vaccines in the region.
The SII, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, is producing the AstraZeneca vaccine for low and middle-income countries and will soon start bulk-manufacturing the Novavax shot. Apart from COVID-19 vaccines, India is the largest supplier of the DPT, BCG and Measles vaccines globally. (The Times of India)