WHO lauds India for helping over 60 nations with vaccines
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The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment to supporting vaccine equity and sharing COVID-19 vaccines with over 60 countries across the world, hoping that the other nations will follow his example.
In a tweet, Ghebreyesus said that India's support in supplying its vaccines is helping over 60 countries to begin the vaccination process.
Twitter Post
Here is what WHO Chief tweeted
Thanks 🇮🇳 Prime Minister @narendramodi for supporting #VaccinEquity. Your commitment to #COVAX and sharing #COVID19 vaccine doses is helping 60+ countries start vaccinating their #healthworkers and other priority groups. I hope other countries will follow your example.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) February 25, 2021
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India dispatched six lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses to Ghana
India on Wednesday dispatched the first batch of six lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses to the African country of Ghana under the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) in collaboration with UNICEF, which aims to cover 92 countries under the initiative. Ghana is amongst them.
Coronavirus vaccine
229 lakh coronavirus vaccines have been provided so far
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on February 12 said, "India has provided over 229 lakh coronavirus vaccine doses to various countries out of which 64 lakh doses have been supplied as grant assistance and 165 lakh on a commercial basis."
MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, "India will continue to take forward the global vaccine supply initiative and cover more countries in a phased manner."
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These countries have received the vaccine as gift
Doses have already been supplied to- Bangladesh (20 lakh), Myanmar (17 lakh), Nepal (10 lakh), Bhutan (1.5 lakh), Maldives (1 lakh), Mauritius (1 lakh), Seychelles (50,000), Sri Lanka (5 lakh), Bahrain (1 lakh), Oman (1 lakh), Afghanistan (5 lakh), Barbados (1 lakh) and Dominica (70,000).
Coronavirus vaccine doses
Countries provided with vaccines on a commercial basis
Srivastava said, "Countries which received vaccines on a commercial basis are Brazil (20 lakh), Morocco (60 lakh), Bangladesh (50 lakh), Myanmar (20 lakh), Egypt (50,000), Algeria (50,000), South Africa (10 lakh), Kuwait (2 lakh) and UAE (2 lakh).
The vaccines are even being sent to Latin American countries.
India, the largest drug producer in the world, is manufacturing two vaccines- Covishield and COVAXIN.