Bangladesh to get contractual supplies of COVID-19 vaccine soon, India says

Bangladesh will get the first consignment of contractual supplies of COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, from India soon as the country on Friday allowed commercial export of the vaccine to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

“India will continue to supply COVID-19 vaccines to partner countries over the coming weeks and months in a phased manner. Contractual supplies are being undertaken to Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Morocco and Myanmar,” the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said, report BSS and indiatvnews.com.

“The supply would be continued keeping in view of the domestic requirements of the phased rollout. It will be ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad,” MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said during a virtual media briefing on Friday.

In terms of quantities and types of vaccines, he said, the supplies abroad on G-to-G, G-to-B, and B-to-B basis would be based on availability and regulatory approval in the countries concerned since there was interest in many countries in access to vaccines from India.

When asked whether Pakistan had made request to India to get the vaccine supply, he avoided to give direct reply saying that he was “not aware of any request for the supply of Indian made vaccines to Pakistan on a G2G basis or commercial basis”.

On vaccine cooperation, he said, among the neighbouring countries, India has so far supplied 2.0 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Bangladesh, 1.0 million doses to Nepal, 150,000 doses to Bhutan and 100,000 doses to the Maldives as grant assistance yesterday.

Besides, he said that consignments of 1.5 million doses for Myanmar and 50,000 doses for Seychelles are being airlifted.

Meanwhile, Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told media that the first consignments of “Covishield”, developed by UK-based drug maker AstraZeneca and Oxford University will be shipped to Brazil and Morocco.

The Indian government had held off exporting doses until it began its own domestic immunisation programme on January 16.

“Commercial supplies of the vaccine would begin from Friday in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment that India’s production capacities would be used for all of humanity to fight the pandemic,” he added.

India is one of the world's biggest drugmakers, and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring the coronavirus vaccines.

India has already rolled out a massive coronavirus vaccination drive under which two vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, are being administered to frontline health workers across the country.

Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield is being manufactured by the Serum Institute, and Covaxin is being produced by Bharat Biotech.

India had earlier supplied hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir and paracetamol tablets, as well as diagnostic kits, ventilators, masks, gloves and other medical supplies to a large number of countries to help them deal with the pandemic.