Brazil President Bolsonaro thanks PM Modi for COVID-19 vaccines
(Sourced from PTI)
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro invoked Lord Hanuman as he thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for providing two million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to fight the deadly virus in his country, Brazil, one of the worst-hit nations by the pandemic. India, one of the world's biggest drugmakers, on Friday began commercial exports and sent two million doses of domestically manufactured Covishield vaccine to Brazil.
Bolsonaro tweeted an image of Hindu god Hanuman carrying a mountain of coronavirus vaccine to Brazil and thanked India for helping Brazil with the vaccine exports. The image is a reference to a tale in the epic Ramayana wherein Lord Hanuman lifted an entire mountain to deliver Sanjeevni booti, a magical life-saving herb, to Lanka to save Lord Ram's brother Lakshman.
- Namaskar, Primeiro Ministro @narendramodi
— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) January 22, 2021
- O Brasil sente-se honrado em ter um grande parceiro para superar um obstáculo global. Obrigado por nos auxiliar com as exportações de vacinas da Índia para o Brasil.
- Dhanyavaad! धनयवाद pic.twitter.com/OalUTnB5p8
Brazil's Health Ministry has said the vaccine from India landed in Sao Paulo on Friday before being flown to Rio de Janeiro, where state-run Fiocruz Institute is based. Fiocruz has an agreement to produce and distribute the vaccine. In April, India had also provided the Latin American country raw materials for the production of anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.
Brazil has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, next only to the United States. The total number of cases are over 8.7 million and 214,000 deaths related to COVID-19 have been recorded.
Notably, India has undertaken contractual supplies of vaccines to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Friday. India has rolled out a massive coronavirus vaccination drive under which two vaccines, Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield (manufactured by Serum Institute of India) and Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN, are being administered to frontline health workers across the country.
India, one of the world's largest drugmakers, has already been approached by many countries for procuring coronavirus vaccines. India had earlier supplied hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir, and paracetamol tablets, as well as diagnostic kits and other medical supplies to numerous nations to help deal with the pandemic.
