NEW DELHI, investor.id – India released its first domestic export of the Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday (20/1) local time. India, which is currently the world’s largest vaccine producer, is reportedly overwhelmed by the demands of countries that want to vaccinate their citizens.
The Maldives and Bhutan in South Asia will be the first recipient countries of India’s Covid-19 vaccine. Next includes Brazil and South Africa (South Africa), because they are already on the waiting list.
“This world pharmacy will be sent to overcome the Covid challenge,” said Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar via Twitter, who was quoted as saying AFP.
The Covid-19 vaccine export policy is seen as India’s attempt to strengthen its influence and match China. Which has also supplied the Covid-19 vaccine to a number of countries.
In January, Indian regulators approved two Covid-19 vaccines. First is Covishield developed by AstraZeneca-University of Oxford and produced by Serum Institute India. The second is Coraxin made by local company Bharat Biotech.
The Indian government stated that the Maldives would receive a free supply of 100,000 doses of Covishield by Wednesday local time. Meanwhile, Bhutan will receive 150,000 doses of the vaccine as a reward.
India said that the next countries that would receive the Indian vaccine were Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and the Seychelles.
Bloomberg last week reported that India would offer 20 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to neighboring South Asian countries. Then then also will export it to Latin America, Central Africa and Central Asia.
The Serum Institute, which is the world’s largest vaccine producer by volume, also plans to supply 200 million doses to Covax. It is an alliance supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) to buy and distribute vaccines to poor countries.
Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech then signed an agreement with a Brazilian company to increase annual production to 700 million doris.
India started running its Covid-19 vaccination on Saturday (16/1). India plans to vaccinate its 1.3 billion people with Covishield and Covaxin. But the Covaxin vaccine has not yet completed its clinical trials.
As of Wednesday (20/1), India has vaccinated nearly 675,000 people. India targets that in July 2021 as many as 300 million of its population will have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Editor : Happy Amanda Amalia ([email protected])
