India to be key part of Biden's allocation plan: Sandhu
ANI
04 Jun 2021, 12:55 GMT+10
By Reena BhardwajWashington [US], June 4 (ANI): Indian Ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu on Thursday (local time) announced that India will be a big part of US President Joe Biden's newly-launched Global Allocation Plan of 25 million COVID-19 vaccines to neighbours and partner countries.
US is set to allocate the first tranche of 25 million COVID-19 vaccines globally to address potential surges and the needs of the most vulnerable countries affected by the pandemic, including India.
In an exclusive interview to ANI, Sandhu said: "President Biden has announced today the Global Allocation Plan of 25 million vaccines. This is the first tranche out of total of 80 million vaccines announced earlier by the United States. The distribution is under two categories - A, through the Covaxin initiative, and B, directly to neighbours and partner countries.""Now, India will figure in both categories, and will get vaccines as per allocation under COVAX and direct supply. So first would be the COVAX initiative in which India is included in Asia. Second, through direct supply to neighbours and partner countries, that includes India, Korea, Canada and Mexico," he addedSandhu further informed that the US has also announced the removal of the Defense Production Act, which means no more priority supply will now be required. This will furthers smoothen the supply chains for vaccine manufacturing, particularly for AstraZeneca and Novavax, he mentioned.