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 64.7 lakh 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 10,000 it provided to Barbados earlier this month.
Calling the distribution of coronavirus vaccines "widely uneven and unfair", UN chief Antonio Guterres said that only 10 countries have administered 75 per cent of all vaccinations. He called for a global effort to get all people in every nation inoculated as soon as possible.
Recounting his journey: Hishammuddin speaking to ‘The Star’ on various issues related to his ministry including the procurement of vaccines for Covid-19. AZLINA ABDULLAH/The Star
FROM repatriating Malaysians stranded overseas to keeping tabs on the development of Covid-19 vaccines and mending strained relations with long-standing partners, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has had a busy year, although much of the work was behind the scenes amid a pandemic.
Q: In less than a month, you would have led Wisma Putra for a full year. How would you summarise your journey?
A: On my very first day in office,
I was on the phone with my foreign counterparts and had meetings until late in the night with Wisma Putra’s senior leadership. At this point in time, tens of thousands of Malaysians were stuck abroad as the pandemic shut borders and restricted air travel. Our priority back then was simple: bring Malaysians home.
PM Modi calls for vaccine data sharing as exports increase
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Krishna N. Das
, Reuters
PM Narendra Modi urged the neighbouring countries to consider sharing data on the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines and explore special visas for medics to move around the region during health emergencies
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NEW DELHI :
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged neighbouring countries to consider sharing data on the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines and explore special visas for medics to move around the region during health emergencies.
As the dominant power in and around South Asia, and with the capacity to be the world s top maker of COVID-19 shots, India has gifted or sold more than 17 million doses to countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Highlights
India has supplied over 229.7 lakh vaccines doses to countries
UN chief has called for a global effort to get all people inoculated
New Delhi: Having approved the use of AstraZeneca-Oxford and Bharat Biotech vaccines, Iran has requested COVID-19 vaccines from India. Iran has become one of more than 20 countries to have requested vaccines from India.
So far India has supplied more than 229.7 lakh COVID-19 vaccines doses to several countries around the world. The country has supplied over 64 lakh doses as grants and over 165 lakh doses commercially. We will continue to take forward the global vaccine supply initiative and cover more countries in a phased manner, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement last week.