Saudi Arabia, Morocco to receive ‘made in India’ Covid vaccine soon

NEW DELHI – India is set to start sending commercial shipment of doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Saudi Arabia and Morocco soon, the Ministry of External Affairs announced in a statement.

"Contractual supplies are being undertaken to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Bangladesh and Myanmar," Anurag Srivastava, Spokesman for the Ministry, said at a briefing on India’s vaccine cooperation with the international community.

He said that in the light of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policy India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity would be used to serve the humanity facing coronavirus pandemic.

The foreign ministry spokesperson said that several other countries have also showed interests to get the vaccine

India started sending vaccines to neighbouring countries as part of its aid on January 20.

"On the first day, 150,000 doses of vaccines were sent to Bhutan as assistance and 100,000 doses to Maldives, also as assistance. Yesterday, supplies of one million doses to Nepal and two million doses to Bangladesh were undertaken. Today, consignments of 1.5 million doses for Myanmar, 100,000 doses to Mauritius and 50,000 doses to Seychelles are being airlifted," according to the Ministry Spokesman.

He added that Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are also being provided vaccine.

"It will be ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad. These will be both as gifts as well as on commercial basis."

The vaccine being exported by India so far have been manufactured by the Serum Institute of India Ltd – the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer by volume – which has partnered with AstraZeneca to produce at least one billion doses of their shot.