Director-General of World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India's commitment towards the COVID-19 vaccine and its distribution to other countries as well.
Thanking the PM for supporting vaccine equity, Ghebreyesus said "your commitment to COVAX & sharing COVID19 vaccine doses is helping 60 plus countries start vaccinating their health workers and other priority groups. Hope other countries will follow your example", as quoted by ANI.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of External Affairs informed that India provided 56 lakh doses of coronavirus vaccines under grants assistance to a number of countries while 100 lakh doses were sent under commercial supplies.
"We have so far supplied vaccines to Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, the UAE, Brazil, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Algeria, Kuwait and South Africa," MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at a media briefing.
Within the country itself, India's first phase of vaccination healthcare and frontline workers will end on March 1. The second phase will then begin, where people above the age of 60 and people above 45 with comorbidities can get vaccinated. The country currently has two vaccines being administered- Serum Institutes' Covishield and Bharath Biotech's Covaxin.
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