NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2021) India on Thursday sent its first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal and Bangladesh, Anurag Srivastava, a spokesman for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, said.
India has launched the Vaccine Maitri initiative and aims to assist neighboring nations by providing the Covishield vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca/Oxford University and produced by Serum Institute of India, for free. On Wednesday, India sent 100,000 doses to the Maldives and 150,000 to Bhutan.
"Day 2 of #VaccineMaitri. Consignment of Made in India Covid vaccines takes off for Nepal! #NeighbourhoodFirst," Srivastava tweeted.
The spokesman also said that "consignment of Indian made Covid vaccines takes off for Bangladesh" in the follow-up tweet.
India also plans to provide COVID-19 vaccines to Myanmar and Seychelles later this week.
On January 16, India started the world's largest COVID-19 vaccination campaign. The first wave of vaccinations, intended for health care and essential workers, is expected to cover some 30 million people. The second wave, inoculating people over the age of 50, may cover some 270 million.
India is in second place in the world in the number of people infected with the coronavirus. , The country confirmed over 10.6 million COVID-19 cases, with more than 152,000 deaths, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health.
