More 'Made in India' vaccines to come: Modi at Davos
The world will see many more 'Made in India' vaccines soon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, addressing the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda Summit. The two 'Made in India' vaccines—Covishield and COVAXIN—will soon be available to the world, he said. The PM also highlighted that India managed to control the coronavirus outbreak and also helped others by exporting PPE kits, masks.
Modi lauded India's handling of COVID-19, saying that the country "beat all odds." He said that many experts had predicted in the early stages of the pandemic that India would be the worst-hit nation. "They predicted two million deaths in the country," he said, adding that India succeeded due to proactive public participation and the development of COVID-specific health infrastructure.
"India is among countries that have succeeded in saving the maximum lives," Modi said, noting that the nation comprises 18% of the world's population (1.3 billion). India has reported the second-highest number of infections (1,07,01,193) for any country and the third-highest number of deaths (1,53,847).
Modi also praised India's COVID-19 vaccination drive, launched on January 16. "In just 12 days, India has vaccinated more than 2.3 million healthcare workers," he said. India has aimed to vaccinate 30 million healthcare and frontline workers free of cost in the first phase. He said India will achieve the target of vaccinating 300 million people from vulnerable groups in the coming months.
The PM said at the summit, "The country, by sending the vaccines to other countries, is saving lives worldwide. Right now, there are just two 'Made in India' vaccines. In the coming days, there will be more."
Further, Modi said that even during the COVID-19 lockdown, India continued economic activities, creating employment opportunities through infrastructure projects worth trillions of rupees. Meanwhile, a recent Oxfam India report highlighted that 1.7 lakh people lost their jobs every hour in India last April, when the complete lockdown was in force. A total of 12.2 crore people were reported to have lost their jobs.
Modi said, "India has stressed a lot on reforms and incentive-based stimulus in recent times. Even during COVID-19, India has paced structural reforms in all sectors. These reforms are being supported by production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes." "We stressed on saving every single life. India, now, is walking ahead to become Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant)," he said, assuring that India's economic situation will now change rapidly.
